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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26687542">Atomic Decay</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitterbones/pseuds/bitterbones'>bitterbones</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>404 Ben Solo Not Found, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Dark-ish, Eventual Smut, F/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Nuclear War, Pregnancy (Not Rey), Scavenger Rey, Slow Burn, Strong Fallout/Madmax inspo, Warlord Kylo Ren, Wasteland horrors and monsters abound, actually its pretty fucking dark, kind of, mind the warnings at the top of each chapter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:00:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>45,426</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26687542</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitterbones/pseuds/bitterbones</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey is a scavenger of the new world wastes. Her whole life is dependent upon the flow of the water trade through her wasteland town. She wants nothing more than to live a life of innocuity and inconspicuousness. But it seems that the powers that be won't allow for that when she finds herself wrapped up in the conflict between the mighty Resistance and the infamous First Order.</p><p>  <i>Rolling onto her side she watched familiar little pinpricks of light bob in the distance, and she wondered passively if the terrible Kylo Ren was among their pursuers. It troubled her, how much she feared him. Only a few glimpses had been enough to show her all the terror that he was. She believed every story she had ever heard, and she prayed to every old-world god that might listen that she might never fall into his hands.</i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>243</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>222</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. A New World</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This story was called "on this salted earth" and I never finished it because it felt like no one was reading it. I'm choosing to continue it now bc I do what I want.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A girl knelt beside a stream. The earth was clayen, red and wet under her knees. It dampened her threadbare pants. She hardly noticed. The water was cool and clear, enticing. She licked her cracked lips, mouth suddenly and brutally dry. </p>
<p>There was something serene about it, in this world of cracked earth and black, dead trees. The water moved ever onward, green moss clinging to the rocks beneath it’s trickling surface. She dipped her fingers in and touched it. Soft, almost like fur. </p>
<p>	She wanted to drink then, to cup her hands and have her fill. It was a primal, natural want, but Rey was of the wasteland, and she knew better than to drink water exposed to the air. It was poison, rife with a hundred isotopes spewed from bombs of extinction; still trying their radioactive hands at their mission a half century after detonation. And somehow more frightening still, the water of that babbling brook ran with the ashes of two-hundred-million-odd victims. All around her the world was sustained by their carrion. Those creatures that clung to existence subsisting on post nuclear ash. The ashes of the old world and its people. </p>
<p>	Rey relied on them just as readily, but the untreated water would increase the speed of her inevitable poisoning, so she ignored her baser instinct and filled a canteen, and then another, and finally a third. All were dented, ancient things, the few she had scavenged that lacked rust. They served their purpose well enough. </p>
<p>	Scavengers did not complain as the wastes provided. Rey was an exceptionally adept scavenger. </p>
<p>	Once the canteens were full and sloshing she placed them into her already burgeoning satchel, metal clanking on metal. Her day’s haul occupied the majority of the space within and the bag sat uncomfortably against her thigh as she rose to stand. She adjusted a red bandana over her mouth and nose, and pulled at the elastic band of the goggles that protected her eyes from debris and radioactive dust. Leather hood snug over her head, sufficiently masking her buns, she looked to the sky, observing the waning light of the setting sun with an anxious exhale. It was time to return home. </p>
<p>	Daytime was the domain of scavengers, travelers, and bandits. But in this world long dead, the night housed countless untold horrors. Bag smacking against her leg with bruising force, Rey took off in a brisk jog, hoping no fool bandit would cross her path. Crossbow jostling reassuringly on her back, she breathed hard into her bandana, and did not slow her pace until she crested a dead, brown hill and laid her eyes upon the patchworked walls of Junktown. </p>
<p>	Wiping the sweat from her brow, she passed easily through the main gate, the guards long ago having learned her look. They never spoke to her, but from behind their old world visors she could feel their respect. One of them, a wastelander, doing honest work for less-than-honest pay. </p>
<p>	Junktown, before the great war, had been a sleepy little Appalachian hamlet by the name of Niima. After, it had been nothing more than a pile of ash and rubble. When the first scavenger’s shacks had gone up, they didn't bother to clear away the debris, instead electing to construct precariously on top of it. And thus its name was earned. In the thirty odd years since its founding it had grown exponentially, a major trade hub for the survivors and settlers of the area. But with it’s confining walls, outward expansion was nigh on impossible. Rey walked in the dreary shadows of seven stories of shautily constructed shanties and storefronts. All around her, in a great, misshapen oval they stretched towards the radioactive sky, blood red with dust and sunset. No light reached her on the ground, blotted out by the height of Junktown’s infrastructure. </p>
<p>	The central portion of Junktown was called the hub. It was wet, and filthy, and stank of human waste. It was also the place where the baron of Junktown took up residence. He was a slavedriver in all but name, and held the lives of many a scavenger in his fat, greasy hands. </p>
<p>	Unkar Plutt’s ‘storefront’ was constructed of rotting wood and rusted, galvanized steel. Behind his counter he kept piles of portions and bottles of precious, purified water. The tools of wasteland slavery. He who controlled the water controlled the people, and the portions were essential in preventing certain vitamin deficiencies. Rey had seen how scurvy ravaged the body, lost teeth and hair and skin. She shuddered at the memory. </p>
<p>	Leather boots caked in mud and filth, she slipped easily past a few loitering Junktown residents, all in varying states of inebriation. The sharp scent of moonshine made Rey’s nose wrinkle. When she finally came to a halt in front of Plutt’s stall she wanted nothing more than to be done with the unpleasant business. The storefront was empty, so she rang the worn bell he had set out on the counter. </p>
<p>	It was only a few moments before he emerged from a plywood door, shirtless and drenched in sweat. He wiped his bald head with a dirty rag and grinned at her menacingly. Rey’s lips pursed, rage blooming hot and fast in her gut. Behind that door lay her childhood, and a dozen others. A sweatshop where Plutt <i>employed</i> the many orphans of Junktown to polish his salvage for sale and sort trash from post-nuclear treasure. Rey remembered the heat, sweat and tears and untreated wounds, hours without water, days without food. She remembered all of it and felt sick, knowing that the cycle continued beyond that quarter inch of rotting wood. She had lived there until she aged into scavenging and then left, prefering to risk her life in the wastes than spend another day in that hell. </p>
<p>	Rey still bore the markings of that torture, scars on her nimble hands, body small and stunted.</p>
<p>	“Rey,” he said her name with unreserved distaste. “Here to trade?”</p>
<p>	Rey nodded and emptied the contents of her satchel onto the counter, save for her water and a few pieces of choice scrap. </p>
<p>	Unkar looked the pieces over thoughtfully, and Rey could see the calculation behind his cold, black eyes. He was going to fuck her over, he always did, but today was going to be particularly brutal. Plutt hated her because she undermined his rule at every turn. She would laugh at his desperation were it not about to keep her from a full supper. </p>
<p>	“Three portions for the lot of it, and half a quart of water.” He stated, bluntly. Then he met her eyes, knowing well that there would be a challenge.</p>
<p>	“Keep the water, and make it four portions.” She had constructed a purifier months ago, it was a point of increased contention between them, and their relationship was already quite contentious. Being able to clean her own water meant that Rey was not entirely reliant on Plutt for survival, that she could expend time and resources beyond his whim and will. </p>
<p>	Twice he had sent hired muscle to destroy the machine, and twice Rey had repaired it. </p>
<p>	“You can have three portions or nothing.” Plutt spat back, making no attempt to hide his ire. <br/>	“Four.” Rey repeated cooly, scowling. </p>
<p>	“Two. Final offer or you can starve, girl.” His eyes were deadly serious, face set in a gap toothed grimace. He was missing his canines on the top and bottom left, and his right front tooth. </p>
<p>	Rey grit her teeth, he would let her starve and have giddy dreams of her tossing with hunger pains in the night. Better to eat and live another day then push her luck any further, “Fine, two.” </p>
<p>	Unkar’s large body relaxed a bit, and he swept her findings from the counter into a large steel bucket. Then he turned around to collect her payment. Rey made a face at the two tumors on the back of his neck. They had been there since she could remember, slowly growing to envelop the first few notches of his spine and the top of his left shoulder. The radiation would take him in the next few years; if the rattle of his breath was any indicator, he had tumors on the inside, too. And when he was gone the political tide of Junktown would shift, and power would fall to another junk lord. </p>
<p>	Immensely pleased with himself, Unkar dropped the agreed upon portions onto the counter. Rey gathered the packets of meal into her hands and frowned when she found the foil sweaty. </p>
<p>	“See you again soon, Rey.” It sounded like a threat. </p>
<p>	Rey scowled and fled, making her way to the other side of the hub, avoiding mud puddles and drunks as she went. All the while she could feel Unkar’s cold stare on her back. He knew where she was going, a place where only the wealthier residents of Junktown could trade; the tiny depot of Lor San Tekka. There was nothing he could do to stop her, and Rey was giddy with how this tiny show of agency enraged him. </p>
<p>	Rolling at the bottom of her satchel was a tiny golden earring that she had fished from the wreckage of a blown out vehicle. It was set with a sparkling white stone. </p>
<p>	Tekka welcomed her warmly. He was ancient for a wastelander, and Rey could see in his watery grey eyes a sadness for the world lost. His hair was white, and his voice was gentle. The man was greatly respected by the people of Junktown and the wastes beyond; he had connections with many small farms beyond the valley and sold their mutated goods in the hub. </p>
<p>	Sometimes she wondered if his eyes had been burned colorless when he had watched the bombs drop. </p>
<p>	“I found something for you,” Rey grinned, fumbling in her bag for the earring. Pinching it between her dirty fingers she dropped it into a waiting palm. </p>
<p>	Tekka hummed and held it away from his face, appreciating the luster of the stone in the dim lighting of the hub, “Where did you find something so fine, little scavenger?” </p>
<p>	“Car,” Rey explained. “Rusted out, it was just laying on the seat next to a skeleton.” Like it had been dropped there for her to find. Some days were easier, for certain. </p>
<p>	“Lucky you. This will trade for a lot out on the farmsteads.” He pushed three jars of pickled vegetables across the counter to her, and then turned around to gather up some fresh fruit in a small bag. They were withered and small, and radioactive to boot, but a few moments shaved from her life was a small price to pay for the sensation of a fresh berry bursting on her tongue. Life at the end of the world was already woefully short; Rey would not deny herself such small pleasures. </p>
<p>	Tucking her earnings safely into her satchel, Rey could still feel Unkar’s gaze boring loathingly into her back. She smiled again and nodded gratefully towards Tekka, “Thank you, hopefully I’ll have another find like that again soon.” </p>
<p>	Tekka agreed amiably, though his eyes were doubtful, then they landed cleanly on Plutt over her shoulder. The two men had never gotten on well, Tekka undermined Plutt’s iron grip on Junktown, offering an alternative to servitude; though few could afford it. It was only through Rey’s ingenuity in constructing her own purifier that she was able to loosen her metaphorical shackles. </p>
<p>	“Be careful.” Rey breathed, so that none around them might hear. </p>
<p>	Tekka shook his head slowly, never looking away from Plutt, “I’ve nothing to fear.” </p>
<p>	His words were little comfort, Rey knew better than to taunt the junk trader so openly. But Tekka had lived in Junktown for longer than she had been alive, he was wise and well loved. Plutt wouldn’t dare touch him. </p>
<p>	She left Tekka and Plutt and the whole soiled mess of the hub behind as she began to climb the narrow wooden walkways that scaled the vertical curve of Junktown’s walls. They were rickety and rotting, and built over scaffolding that was equally so, but Rey hardly noticed. She’d never once seen a board give, and gave it little thought. With each small flight of stairs the air grew marginally fresher, and shanties and constructs newer. Like layers of the earth the levels of Junktown had been laid, and though the lower levels were older and more prized. The newer ones provided fresh air and a fine view of the sky. </p>
<p>	Rey could bear being a pauper so long as her home didn’t reek perpetually of shit. </p>
<p>	On the last landing of the third level, a single flight of stairs away from her converted shipping container, she was stopped. </p>
<p>	It was Finn, bright eyed and kind. She didn’t even shudder at the sensation of his hand on her arm, though she still shook it off and glared at him. He was handsome, she might have even deigned to flirt if he weren’t so fucking idealistic.</p>
<p>	“Here,” he said, pressing a hand drawn flyer into her linen wrapped palm. “Please think about it, Rey. We could use someone like you.” </p>
<p>	“A scavenger?” She snapped, body aching to sit. </p>
<p>	“Someone who can build their own water purifier from scrap.” His eyes pleaded. </p>
<p>	Glancing over Finn’s shoulder, a woman peered at her curiously from the doorway of their wooden shack. It was Paige, wife of Poe. She was pregnant, belly swollen. Rey shuddered, turned and continued on her way. Finn stared from behind her, lips pursed. </p>
<p>	She kept the flyer, crumpled tight in her fist. It was only once she had begun to ascend the flight of rickety stairs that led to her hovel that she unbunched it and smoothed it between her fingers. </p>
<p>	It was a likeness of the dauntless leader of the Resistance, Leia Organa, sketched out in graphite, a finger pointed towards the viewer. Beneath it, written in bold letters, the flyer read; <b>THE RESISTANCE NEEDS YOU</b>, and beneath that smaller, <b>to aid in the fight against the FIRST ORDER</b>. Rey scowled and dropped it, letting it flutter past the many stories of Junktown to the hub below. </p>
<p>	The Resistance was militarized force of ideologies with their heads and misplaced hearts stuck in the past. They promised a return to an old way of life, the way things were before the end. Headquartered far to the west, none of the scavengers of Junktown and its surrounding settlements had much trust or love for them. Rey felt much the same. These emissaries were outsiders come from a strange land to change the ingrained ways of the wastes and her people. They lived beneath the earth in radiation free bunkers. They traded for everything, or contracted wastelanders to do risky work for them. </p>
<p>	When the Resistance moved into a settlement it quickly became nothing more than a forward point in their proxy war against the First Order. These people were pampered and privileged; they knew nothing of hardship or survival. The wasteland would crush them one day, for they lacked resilience. </p>
<p>	And, Rey chuckled to herself as she came to a halt at the galvanized door of her shanty, The First Order and The Resistance seemed to share the same, vague mission statement. Though neither would admit it. </p>
<p>	Putting the Resistance out of her mind she undid the combination lock that kept nosy scavengers and thieves alike from her home, and slipped happily into the darkness. Her hand felt around for the switch on the wall, and when she found it a half dozen small, fluorescent bulbs flickered to life on the ceiling. </p>
<p>	Rey had done relatively well for herself, and her self taught knowledge of electronics had served to make her home a secret diamond in the rough of Junktown. It was a small shipping container, thin steel that she had little difficutly drilling through; though hiring the help to have it moved had cost her months of scrap and portions. It had been worth it. Now, as she hung her crossbow on the wall, and laid out her knives on a small wooden stool, she could appreciate her meager belongings in electric light. </p>
<p>	The solar panels which laid flat and hidden on her roof collected energy in power cells during the day, which fed her lights by night. There were very few electric lights in Junktown. Rey possessed a third of them, dangling from her ceiling. </p>
<p>	Smiling she stripped down to her underwear, kicking her leather armor under her threadbare hammock. She tossed her sweaty shirt and pants into a small waste receptacle turned laundry basket. </p>
<p>	Clad in a sports bar and a pair of thin leggings she set to work, pouring the contents of each bottle of water into the funnel at the top of the purifier. It would be a few hours before she had a drinkable quantity of water. So, biding her time, she moved to her makeshift vanity. </p>
<p>	It was a half rotten wooden shelf that protruded from the wall. On it sat a basin of dirty water, above it Rey had hung a cracked, chipping mirror. It was covered in a layer of fine dust, the same radioactive film that coated everything after a day of disuse. </p>
<p>	She peered at herself, warm brown eyes curious as they took in the hard planes of her face. Rey was checking for weight-loss, jaundice, bloodshot eyes, any abnormality that might indicate a deeper sickness. She found nothing of note, only a filthy boyish-girl with freckles and lonely eyes. Feminine despite how the wastes cowed her low. The very reason she wore a hood while scavenging. </p>
<p>	There were rules to the wastes, and she broke one of the very first with each breath she drew, each intrepid step she took; <i>don’t be a woman</i>. She hid her sex well enough, not that it was hard. Thinking of Paige, she shuddered again. Another rule broken, though this time not by Rey. If you were a woman it was in your best interest not to become pregnant.</p>
<p>	Not wanting to think of it any longer she splashed her face with dirty water, then settled into her hammock. With a sigh, muscles finally relaxing after a backbreaking day, she plucked a book from the floor beneath her.</p>
<p>	She would practice her words in the meantime, while she waited for her water. It was a book for children, it’s spine thin, the colors of it’s cover had once been very comfortable. </p>
<p>	Opening up to the first yellowing page, she began to practice. Already remembering the shapes and sounds of ‘the’ and ‘am’. She dozed off thinking of the new words she had learned, like ‘eggs’ and ‘ham’. </p>
<p>	Rey wondered what ham was.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Gallows</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Enter Kylo Ren</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for all the lovely comments last chapter!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next day brought with it eager mouthfuls of fresh water at sunrise followed by a handful of malformed berries for breakfast. She followed the sweetness with the sour taste of a portion, and wondered to herself why she hadn’t reversed the order. </p>
<p>	She dressed in a spotted grey t-shirt that held tight to the angles of her torso, stripped her leggings and tugged on a pair of worn jeans. They were loose enough to help hide her negligible figure, but tight enough that they would not catch easily on scrap and rubble. After that came her armor. All reddish, boiled leather pieces. Shin guards first, then thigh, followed by the chest and back pieces. Held together by straps at the shoulders, she slid them on over her head, then she attached the shoulder pieces which covered the openings. Unlike the rest of the set they were forged from beaten steel. She pulled on her leather hood and wrapped her hands in maroon linen before armoring her upper and lower arms. </p>
<p>	Finally, she tucked her knives into her belt and shouldered her crossbow. The full ensemble of a scavenger. She pulled her red bandanna over her mouth and nose, strapped her satchel over her body, and set out into Junktown. </p>
<p>	Poe stood in the doorway of his shack, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette; there was something like pity in his dark eyes. </p>
<p>	That was all the Resistance felt for those who did not cower in bunkers and play at post-world politics from the dark; pity. </p>
<p>	Rey pointedly ignored him, making her way down the walkways of Junktown with practiced ease, more scavengers joining her in her morning ritual as she descended. All dressed in patchwork armor; some even had the benefit of a cracked gas-mask to cover their faces and ward off some of the radiation. </p>
<p>	Then they came to the hub, leather boots thumping on the hard packed earth, and Rey’s stomach dropped. Something was very wrong.</p>
<p>	There was a crowd gathered in the central hub, people jumping up onto the shoulders of others to get a clear view of <i>something</i>. The area was overcrowded for sunrise, the crowd seemed caught between terrified awed and absolute bloodthirst. </p>
<p>	“Another!” A man shouted over the rest, “Take Zorii next, she's a thief!” </p>
<p>	Next for <i>what</i>? But she already knew. Swallowing down bile Rey shoved her way through the crowd, using her metal pauldrons to force men twice her size out of her path. She knew she shouldn’t look, knew what she would find waiting for her there. Whether it was morbid curiosity or festering guilt that drove her onward, she couldn’t say. Maybe both. </p>
<p>	Rey had seen the gallows go up before; a twisted jungle gym of pvc piping and rebar; garnished with a swinging rope of faded pink nylon tied into a noose. Finally, she reached the front of the crowd, the wave of human bodies shoving her hard against the temporary platform. Her fingers scraped on the wood like she might climb up and cut him loose, a scream catching in the new rawness of her throat. </p>
<p>	Lor San Tekka swung lazily back and forth, skin tearing where the rope dug into his neck too tightly. His eyes were wide and white, purple veins stuck out from his face. He was pale, dead for some time already. Likely stolen from his bed in the dead of night, too old and weak to defend himself, left for an example come sunrise. </p>
<p>	Rey swallowed down vomit, tripping back to the edge of the crowd before spewing her guts into the dirt. This was her fault, she was to blame for defying Plutt so openly. She sobbed past spit and snot, her mouth sour. </p>
<p>	A hand on her shoulder broke her from her despair. Gentle through the leather, “Easy, Rey.” </p>
<p>	Finn’s voice, boyish and familiar. Wordlessly he offered her his canteen. She took it and rinsed her mouth, spitting into the ground. Taking a steadying breath she passed the canteen back to him, and managed a shuddering, “Thank you.” </p>
<p>	Finn nodded then glanced back towards the gallows. He shook his head, “Poe, Paige, Rose are I are departing later this week, you should join us. The First Order is here.” </p>
<p>	Rey’s expression twisted and she glanced around nervously, but she found no sign of the scourge of the wastes. Turning her attention back to Finn, she scowled at him. Of course, he saw this as just another opportunity to recruit. She turned and left him there in the crowd. She wasn’t sure where she was going, what she intended to do, but she did not need the fucking Resistance breathing down her neck while she did it. </p>
<p>	Then there was a shout, a thunder of hooves that overwhelmed the din of the hub. Rey couldn’t help but turn and look, just as Finn found her again. His lips parted and his handsome brow furrowed as a dark, cloaked shape ascended the ramshackle wooden stairs to stand on the gallows platform. </p>
<p>	Cold overtook Rey’s limbs and extremities, and she rubbed her arms to bring some warmth back into them. Cowled in black, donning an austere, ebony mask of painted scrap, Kylo Ren was easy to recognize from the tales she had heard. Rumor was his weapon of choice was a rusted claymore stolen from a museum collection. Rumor was that he could dodge bullets, and behead a man in a single swing. </p>
<p>	Suddenly the crowd began to press in, and Rey found herself holding her breath against the stench of her fellow scavengers. First Order soldiers had encircled them, and were pushing them all inward towards the gallows with large, black riot shields. </p>
<p>	“Stay with me,” Finn breathed in low warning, keeping his head ducked. “There’s no telling what they’re going to do. We got zero intel about this from HQ.” </p>
<p>	Rey was about to tell him to kindly fuck off when the shadowy Kylo Ren raised a large, gloved hand and the crowd fell instantly silent. It was like he held some power over the lot of them, perhaps he did. Reputation which preceded him to Junktown, and fear. The First Order was totalitarian, cruel and violent. Kylo Ren exemplified this. </p>
<p>	Rey had heard the stories of entire settlements burned to the ground, their residents burnt alive, the survivors often crucified at Ren’s command. Some whispered that he was the spirit of the old world come back to wreak bloody vengeance upon those who toiled in the wastes. </p>
<p>	“People of <i>free</i> Junktown,” his deep voice carried easily over their heads, and he said the word ‘free’ with such venom that Rey shuddered.</p>
<p>	“This man,” he motioned vaguely in Tekka’s direction. The body swung in the putrid breeze. “This man was undermining the will of The First Order in these lands. Look at him and see the price he has paid, and know it could just as easily have been you.” </p>
<p>	Rey swallowed, torn between shouting obscenities and attempting to escape the hub. She knew where this was going. She knew what would come next, and she felt sick. Junktown would not be free much longer, it seemed. </p>
<p>	“For so long we have allowed you to live here in your independent squallor. No more! Beginning today Junktown will begin to serve as an official supply depot of The First Order in our quest to conquer all of the old world.” </p>
<p>	Finn looked faint, which surprised Rey considering this was the exact sort of thing the Resistance was wont to do. Both factions were equally power hungry in their own ways, and as a creature of the free wastes Rey reviled each with the same conviction.</p>
<p>Warlord Ren continued, and Rey spotted the jut of a hilt poking over his right shoulder. It was just as black as the rest of him, swathed in midnight. It made Rey even more anxious than she had been before. Would he be taking any heads while he was at it?</p>
<p>	“From this day onward, you serve <i>us</i>. From this day forward you are citizens of The Order.” </p>
<p>	The soldiers began to loosen their hold on the crowd, and like the shadowy scoundrels they were, people began to slip away, blending into the shadows and fleeing the vicinity of Kylo Ren, even as he still spoke, giving them the rote details of their impending enslavement. Rey could tell he had given this same speech before, he sounded almost bored. </p>
<p>	Rey did much the same as her brethren, feeling Ren’s fiery gaze wandering behind that horrible, patchwork scrap mask. She slipped away, using the wall of larger bodies to hide her retreat. Finn remained where he was, likely not noticing her absence until long after she had vanished. </p>
<p>	Her legs carried her to nowhere in particular. She didn’t want any of the dirty-white plated soldiers to track her to her home. So she resigned herself to wander until the area had cleared. </p>
<p>	The hours bled together, one to the next, she wound her way through the labyrinth of Junktown three times over, shaking, but never crying. If she were visibly distressed it would only serve to draw negative attention to her. Once, as she circled the hub for the second time, Tekka’s body still strung up like a macabre ornament, she spotted Unkar. He stood behind his counter, watching her with his small, black eyes. </p>
<p>	He was grinning. </p>
<p>	Rey ran. He was an Order informant then, all the cruelty he exacted upon the people of Junktown was done in <i>their</i> name.</p>
<p>	All of this to punish <i>her</i> to send a message to <i>her</i>. Why? Why did her loyalty matter so much? To kill an innocent man just to assert control? To call in The First fucking-Order? And it was her fault. She should never have built that purifier, should never have defied the Junk Lord of Junktown so openly. Biting back bitter tears she slammed the door of her shanty behind her, no longer caring who saw. She needed privacy. She needed to breathe, but she struggled for air. </p>
<p>	Her hands shook so hard she could barely remove her hood. Looking into her mirror she found her eyes puffy and her lower lip chewed raw. Her face was red from crying. </p>
<p>	A man was dead because of her, The First Order was moving into free Junktown because she was too proud to cow herself before a fat, dying slave driver. And now she would be forever beholden to him; until the tumors finally swallowed him whole she would live beneath the thumb of Unkar Plutt, and then his successor, and then his. The Order would see to that. Rey of the wastes would live and die in Junktown, forever a lowly scavenger, forever selling her hard earned wares for less than nothing, struggling each day to survive. </p>
<p>	Choking on grief she struggled into her hammock, then past it. She landed hard on her knees, hands fumbling at the clasping locks of a rusted foot locker. It was dented so terribly she had to use the toe of her boot to push the lid free. </p>
<p>	Inside it was almost empty; Rey had few things she valued so greatly to lock them away. Only one, in fact. It was a photograph, grainy and faded with time and radiation, sitting singularly within the confines of the foot locker. An image of a woman, her chestnut hair pulled back into a tight bun. Rey favored her, she thought. She had freckles too. </p>
<p>	Rey clutched the image to her chest and wondered where the wide-eyed woman within had vanished to. Why she had left her child in the hands of such a cruel creature. She wondered if she was even still alive. And she wondered what her mother might say to her now, what she might make of these unfortunate circumstances. </p>
<p>	Rey imagined what her voice would sound like, what her gentle hands might feel like touching her hair, her cheek. The spectre of her mother who lived behind her eyes was soft in all of her mannerisms, and when she spoke, it was with words from deep in Rey’s subconscious. </p>
<p>	<i>There is nothing left for you here, Rey.</i> Delicate fingers in her hair, if she kept her eyes closed, she prayed they might never leave her. <i>There was never anything to begin with.</i></p>
<p>	Rey swallowed thickly and considered. She did have things here. A home, a water purifier, stability to the extent that it existed in the world beyond the end. She had <i>things</i>. But of what value would they be when the wastes inevitably overwhelmed her? Each day, when she stepped past the gates of Junktown, her time became borrowed, hours and minutes drained away as she wandered. </p>
<p>	Rey certainly had things. But they were not the things she needed. The ghost of her mother, who lived in the picture in her hands, in the lobes of her rotting brain, was right. </p>
<p>	Then soft and unbidden, Rey asked, “Why did you leave me?” It was spoken to no one but the darkness of her shack, pitifully. Were her eyes not shut tight watery tears would be welling in them. </p>
<p>	The phantom hand vanished, because it had never been there to begin with, and Rey felt another wave of nausea sweep her body. She was alone here in this dreary shipping container, in Junktown, in the Appalachian wastes. She was terribly and hopelessly alone, and at her back loomed an oppressive darkness that threatened to keep her there forever.</p>
<p>Junktown was her prison. Brought there involuntarily, kept there against her will, and soon she would be locked in for life, a slave in the service of The First Order. Rey needed to leave. She needed to escape that very day while the desperate fires of want for freedom still burned hot in her belly. </p>
<p>Kylo Ren and his masked soldiers could not, would not, keep her. </p>
<p>And just that morning, as the shadow of Lor San Tekka’s corpse swayed overhead, she had been presented with an opportunity. </p>
<p>Clamoring to her feet, Rey bounded out and down the stairs towards the next landing. Poe was leaning in the doorway of his shack, smoking another cigarette. Rey wondered momentarily where he got the tobacco from. There were not many farms that grew it in the area, as far as she knew. It was considered non-essential. </p>
<p>“Rey,” He acknowledged her with a tip of his head and a wide, handsome smile. “How may I be of assistance to you today?” </p>
<p>Though he played at flirtation, Rey could see the dark circles like crescent moons under his eyes. There was fear waiting there, too. Glimmering just behind his dark iris. Fear of the Order, perhaps. Fear for his heavily pregnant wife. </p>
<p>“Finally come to take us up on our offer?” His eyes shifted to the place where one of their Resistance flyers had been hung. It was gone now, torn down upon this sudden arrival of the Order. </p>
<p>	“I couldn’t give less of a fuck about the Resistance,” Rey admitted, coldly. “But Finn told me you were planning to leave Junktown soon. I want in.”</p>
<p>	“Oh?” </p>
<p>	“You need someone like me. You guys have been living off of Resistance handouts for too long. You don’t know what it’s like out there anymore.” Her expression and voice were stern, and she crossed her arms over her chest. Behind Poe she spotted a very swollen Paige peeking around the corner. “I can hunt, and I can fight.” </p>
<p>	“We can fight,” Poe feigned injury. </p>
<p>	“Not like I can. Whatever the Resistance teaches you is nothing compared to what’s waiting out there for you.” </p>
<p>	Poe shrugged his shoulders, “I mean, we’ve spent some time out in the wastes ourselves, we’d be okay. But the more the merrier. We’d be happy to have you along.”</p>
<p>	He extended a hand between them. Rey took it, finding it warm and dry as they shook. With a sweep of that same hand he invited her into his shack-home. It was small, but larger than Rey’s shipping container. It actually had a separate bedroom, and they had wired an ancient TV into one of the wooden walls. Grainy cartoons played across the screen, dropping anvils on each other’s heads and running into walls painted like tunnels. </p>
<p>	Rey watched, momentarily mesmerized. Almost no one could afford a television, and even fewer people possessed the necessary leisure time to enjoy one. </p>
<p>	“The tape was a gift from General Organa when she learned Paige was pregnant,” Poe explained, inviting Rey to sit on a ratty couch in front of the screen. He sat in a metal folding chair across from her, elbows resting on his knees as he steepled his fingers under his nose. “Things are very bad right now, Rey.” </p>
<p>	“I noticed,” she deadpanned back. </p>
<p>	Paige stepped into the room with a small metal tray, on it were two tin cups filled with crystal clear water. When she handed one to Rey the scavenger sniffed it hesitantly. It smelled of nothing at all, indicating that it was purified. </p>
<p>	Rey glanced between her two hosts curiously. As far as she knew neither of them were mechanics or engineers by trade. How could they have a purifier?</p>
<p>	Unprompted, Poe explained, “The Resistance keeps us supplied with the basics, though now that will be almost impossible. Which is why we need to leave.”</p>
<p>	Rey sipped her water, “Where are we going?” </p>
<p>	Poe lowered his voice, words so small Rey strained to hear, “The headquarters of the Resistance is fifteen miles outside of old Flagstaff.” </p>
<p>	Rey had heard of Flagstaff, only vague useless things. It had been decimated during the war, left little more than a smoldering crater in the pine forests of the mountains it butted up against. She also knew that it was a long way from Junktown. </p>
<p>	“Isn’t your wife pregnant?” Rey asked, incredulous. There was no way they would make it in time for the baby to be born. Paige was swollen up like a balloon. </p>
<p>	“I knew the risks when I decided I wanted a baby,” She said, soft but resolute. “This was always a possibility.” </p>
<p>	“Rose has been doing the necessary research to midwife when the time comes,” Poe explained, though his eyes are shadowed and sad. It was a dangerous thing to give birth <i>without</i> the added madness of the wastes closing in around you.</p>
<p>	Rey shrugged her shoulders, it wasn’t her problem, she supposed, “Fine. Do you have adequate supplies? I can offer some food and pure water, but not enough to sustain us through a trip that long.” </p>
<p>	“We have enough,” Poe rose up from his seat and turned to fumble through a dresser drawer. “Let’s see here… here it is!” </p>
<p>	He produced a yellowed, folded piece of paper. When he opened it up to show Rey she was presented with a winding red line hopping from one blue point to the next. She guessed the blue points marked depots or settlements whose names she could not read. </p>
<p>	“There will be plenty of supply stops along the way. At least east of the Mississippi. Out west will be more difficult, but we should be able to hook up with another caravan before then.” </p>
<p>	Rey hummed and drummed her fingers on the arm of the couch, “The Order must really have you scared if you’re running all the way back to Flagstaff.” </p>
<p>	She planned to part ways with them some time before they reached the Mississippi. All of the free lands that remained were in the east, and Rey had no desire to become beholden to one of the western powers. </p>
<p>	Poe tucked the map back into its hiding place and slumped back into his chair, “Honestly, I don’t really know what’s going on. All I know is that we received an order to fall back two days ago.” </p>
<p>	Rey frowned. Was the Resistance leaving the east for the Order to have? </p>
<p>	“Right, well, I’m in. At least for a little while,” Rey stood up. Pregnant Paige loitering was making her eager to leave, like she was in the presence of death itself. “When should I be ready?” </p>
<p>	“Three days from now, early morning, before the mists clear from the hills. Keep a low profile until then, and gather up any supplies that you can. We’ll need them.” </p>
<p>	Rey nodded and slipped back out the door, wondering if Lor San Tekka’s shop had been raided by other scavengers yet. She supposed it was worth checking and began her descent down to the hub. Certainly he would have wanted her to have his wares, wouldn’t he?”</p>
<p>	In the end she supposed it didn’t really matter.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hope you enjoyed &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. In The Shadows</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I proof read this in a hurry, please excuse any surface errors. &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The day came quickly, in a rush of preparations and whispers. The Order’s presence in Junktown was already growing, though rumor had it Kylo Ren himself wouldn’t be staying long. He would make a round of the hub once a day, mounted on a massive black horse. Rey had never before seen such a well bred creature. Most of the horses and mules that wandered the wastes were scrappy; missing fur and skin, sometimes cut down to the sinew by decay. They were feral, wild eyed and mean. This horse showed none of that characteristic wasteland deformation. It was sturdy, better fed then most of Junktown, with a mane tied up in intentional knots and a long, flowing tail. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She would watch from any high flung, hidden vantage points she could find; taking note of his winding path through the narrow ‘streets’ of the town. Always, he was flanked by a column of white armored soldiers. They would crash through doors and open windows unannounced, searching for any sign of dissidence among the people. Though they never ranged as high as Rey’s seventh level shipping container, it still prompted her to hide all of her valuables away in her lockbox; including what little food she had managed to gather. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It was by dark of night that they fled in waves. Paige and Poe went first, skirting awkwardly through the darkness as she struggled with her swollen belly. Then Finn and Rose followed without a hitch. Finally, it was Rey’s turn. Not knowing when, or if, she would ever return, she had packed away her few cherished belongings at the bottom of her satchel. She wore two full canteens over her body and her crossbow was strapped across her back. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>With one final glance in her dusty, cracked mirror, she said goodbye to the scavenger she knew and slipped out the door. She padlocked it like she normally would, knowing that eventually someone would take a pair of heavy cutters to it, but she liked to pretend she might one day return to her little makeshift home. Someday, when the Resistance and the Order were nothing more than nightmares to plague her sleep. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Keeping her head low, she stuck to the shadows. There was a ten o’clock curfew in effect, and it was well past midnight. If she was caught she was a dead woman. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Her heart thundered as she made her descent, each groan and crack of a plank beneath her foot made her wince. New installed searchlights swept wide and bright over the hub below, Illuminating and revealing any poor soul caught in their paths. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Rey wasn’t sure how she would contend with those, they were manually controlled, following no discernable pattern. Far below she spotted troopers patrolling in their off-white armor, yellowed by wasteland filth. They carried guns of a caliber Rey was unfamiliar with. Large with frighteningly long barrels. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Swallowing hard, she propelled easily down to the third level on a well used length of rope, landing quietly between two shanties. A light swept over her, but did not quite shine down into the damp corner where she hunkered, waiting. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She chewed nervously at her lip cowering behind a rusted steel drum, watching as two troopers swept by. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Quiet night,” she heard one of them say. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The other hummed noncommittally, but his response was lost in the growing distance between them. Rey darted out behind them, cloaked in shadow. There was a rounded support beam just across the way. When her hands met the cool metal she slid down quickly, gazing frantically searching for her next hiding place. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She found it in the mouth of an abandoned second level shanty. It was wood, and when the searchlights passed overhead shafts of dirty light shone through the cracks between each board. Nervously, Rey watched motes of dust and debris dance until the light swept away once more. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There were more troopers now. She could see them on the ground two levels below and patrolling along the raised walkways. The lower levels and hub were eerily silent. She could hear the steady drip of putrid water somewhere under her feet. How had the others passed through unseen? </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Then she spotted it as a searchlight passed overhead a narrow alleyway, only as wide as her shoulders. It separated the first and second stories of two ramshackle storefronts. Rey wasn’t familiar with all the back alleys and hidden passageways of Junktown, she wasn't a thief or vagabond of any sort. But it seemed that it was the only safe passage she would find. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Holding her breath, she tiptoed across a rusted stretch of rebar, balancing over open air. One of the spotlights passed near and she nearly lost her balance, boots shuffling awkwardly on the rusted steel. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There were no guards directly beneath her, but several units over she heard one of them alert at her noise. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“What was that?” A woman, her voice was rough from what must’ve been years of smoking.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Panicked, Rey rushed for the other side of the gap, throwing caution to the wind. One she had safely planted her feet on the wooden roof of Jabba’s bar, she let out the breath she had been holding. She was hidden from the lights by a piece of aluminum overhang, her back pressed to the dirty, dark windows of the bar’s second floor. Below her she could hear voices droning softly, likely guards having a drink at the end of their shift. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Stepping softly, she made her way over to the edge of the roof, peering down into the narrow alleyway. It was dark, and stank more than the rest of Junktown. She could make out the rut in the earth where many vagrants had walked in shadow before her. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She found a rope ladder tied to some piping along the side of the bar. It was rough and worn, and she feared it might give under her weight. She was pleasantly surprised when she found it was sturdier than it looked. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Cautiously she descended into the darkness below, beyond the reach of any patrols or lights. The alleyway stank even worse when she was immersed in its depths. The ground was oddly soft under her heels and squelched wetly when she walked. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She followed the singular path of the alleyway through the mountains of detritus that comprised Junktown. It was odd to see all of her familiar haunts from this new angle. Many were electrical hazards, fires just waiting to start from faulty wiring. Rey paused for a moment when she came to the back of Lor San Tekka’s store. He had a grow light wired up to the underside of the until above him. It still buzzed low and radiated its lavender light despite the hour, warming and nourishing several repurposed rubbish cans which were replete with tiny sprouts. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Grief gripped her as she paused over them. The light had probably been on since the morning of Tekka’s death. She hadn’t explored far enough to see it when she went scrounging through his shop for supplies. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Tentatively, she reached out a finger and felt the soil in one of the cans. It was bone dry and loose to the touch. Though it pained her, Rey knew that she could spare no water to help the little plants.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Heart heavy, she switched off the light, sparing the sprouts from a scorching death. Instead they would wilt and die in the darkness. Which seemed more peaceful to Rey. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>When she was through with them, biting back bitter tears at the fresh wound of Tekka’s loss, she slinked back into the shadows and continued to follow her path. Several times it branched off, and each time Rey chose a direction randomly. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Eventually it brought her to the back of Unkar’s place. She took another moment, eager to say her final farewell to that cursed place. When she pressed her eye up to a split in the wooden door she found it was too dark to see anything, but if she held her breath and listened closing she could make out the soft, steady breathing of the children Unkar kept as his slaves. Rey felt empathy for them, she had been in their position once, but there was nothing she could do. Perhaps the Order would discover what was happening and intervene, though she doubted it. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Finally the pathways brought her to a hole in the ground covered by a piece of heavy, rusted metal. It butted up against a shear wall, which she hoped was one of those that contained Junktown. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She strained over the metal sheet, shoving it aside just far enough for her to fit into the dank darkness of the tunnel. Only having to army crawl for a few, scant meters, she quickly came to the other side. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Above her was a wooden hatch, and around its edges there was a promising halo of pale light. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Pushing up, Rey emerged three feet from Junktown’s outer wall. The night air was cool and quiet. She quickly and instinctively pulled her bandana over her nose and mouth as paltry protection against contaminants.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Her party was waiting nearby, pressed up against the wall and holding real, working flashlights in their hands. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Rey</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Finn whispered and beckoned her over. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Rey dusted herself off as she emerged fully from the ground. Her feet crunched softly on the dead grass, a field of which ringed the town. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“We’re waiting for dawn,” Rose explained softly. Her eyes flickered nervously up to the walls, like a guard might finally decide to climb all seven levels just in time to catch them. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Rey nodded, “That’s wise.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The wastes were exceptionally dangerous by night. The few passable road ways became funnels of death as all kinds of horrid, mutated creatures emerged beneath the light of the moon. Only fire could keep most of them at bay. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Rey had made the mistake before of staying out too past dark, and each time she had ended up hunkering down in a ruin, shivering the night away as untold horrors snuffled around her hiding place. She wasn’t alone now, which boded slightly better for her chance of survival. She could always trip someone and run. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Poe had a pony waiting for them. He wasn’t like many of the horses common to the wastes, who were all skin and bone with flesh sloughing off of their flanks. No, this fellow was a healthy copper color, and there was not a place on his robust form where Rey spotted exposed muscle or bone. His eyes were lively and a deep brown, a far cry from the ghostly, blind pupils of the wild things that roamed the dead forests. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He was a Resistance mount, to be sure, and reminded her of Kylo Ren’s great, ebon steed. That either organization had the time to </span>
  <em>
    <span>breed</span>
  </em>
  <span> horses confounded her.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Poe helped his wife up onto the animal’s back and collected everyone’s packs, tying them to the saddle. His eyes kept flitting to the dark line of the horizon, where the stars stopped and the sloping cut of the Appalachian mountains began. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“What’s his name?” Rey asked, wanting to touch the soft fur of the horse’s neck, but hesitating. Animals were common vectors of illness… and what if he bit?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Poe looked between her shaking fingers and the horse’s flesh, “Beebee. It’s okay, you can pet him. He’s friendly.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Tentatively, Rey touched his neck, and when the animal didn't so much as twitch she found the courage to stroke. His fur was soft and smooth, his neck muscular. Beebee flicked his ears, and as though he could sense Rey's lingering hesitance, he turned his head towards her and butted his nose up against the back of her hand. His whiskers tickled her knuckles and she giggled. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It was a strange sound, even to her own ears, but the horse seemed to understand it was good, and nickered softly at her. Rey decided she liked Beebee. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>On his back, Paige looked extraordinarily uncomfortable. She was very large, and Rey wondered how she could even bear the weight. Their eyes locked for a moment and Rey turned away, unsure of what one was supposed to say to a pregnant woman. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I do hope it isn’t mutated beyond recognition. I hope it doesn’t split you in half on the way out. Why would you allow this to happen in a world like this? Mother’s are uncommon, babies even moreso. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The latter was a foolish question all around. These Resistance emissaries lived their lives sheltered beneath the earth, they did not know the risks. They did not know how the air was poison in your lungs; how each breath drew your body nearer and nearer to death, or worse. They did not know that babies were born dead and misshapen, lumpy and extra-limbed. Tails were common, stillbirth moreso. They did not know that mother’s died more often than they lived; that if they did not bleed to death on their childbed then infection would take root and rot them from the inside out. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They did not know because they did not care to learn, because they were not of the wastes. They only sought to reshape a land they saw as mysterious and broken, in need of fixing. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Rey swallowed down her worries, and told herself that she was not one of them; they were simply her ticket out of Junktown. They were her escort through the wastes. There was safety in numbers; once the sun rose, and they began their perilous journey, she would see. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This is doubling as my piece for day six of Fictober! You can read everything else I'm writing over on my tumblr.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Road</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm making this my primary project, its so much fun.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dawn came on them slowly, first with streaks of pale pink and bloody red backing the distant mountains, then with the creeping temperature change that accompanied the brutal wasteland days. Like frogs in a pot, they waited, lame ducks between the high walls of junktown and the horrors that awaited them in the lingering darkness. </p>
<p>Rey counted them lucky that nothing had emerged from the night’s maw to malign them, and that no guard had ventured far enough to spot them laying in wait. </p>
<p>Once the sun began to peek its pale face over the sloping backs of the Appalachians they began to ready themselves for the day. They would need to move quickly and keep their heads down to avoid detection. Poe wasn’t entirely sure how far the Order’s newfound influence might reach, and there was always the risk that someone might trail them out of Junktown. </p>
<p>Rey was tightening her leather armor to her body when they finished their preparations. </p>
<p>	“All set!” Finn said, merrily. He had a gun holstered on his right hip, a machete on his left. His bright eyes caught on Rey’s crossbow, and drawing uncomfortably close he prodded it with a curious finger, “Woah. Packing some major heat, huh? You know how to use that thing?”</p>
<p>	Rey scowled at him, sidestepping away, “Wanna find out?” </p>
<p>	He laughed, but behind him Rose quirked an eyebrow. </p>
<p>	Poe broke the tension, sidling between them with a faded map opened between his hands. All across its surface were little red dots, drawn on by hand. </p>
<p>	“So ultimately we’re going to make west, like we’re headed for Zion. That route has the best established roads and most frequent rest stops.” </p>
<p>	Rey allowed her eyes to comb over the page, nodding her head like she understood; desperate to hide from them the humiliating fact that she could not read the words on the page. Far to the right side she recognized ‘Junktown’ written out in ballpoint pen, and above it to the east she recognized D.C. But beyond those familiar names she was lost. </p>
<p>	Poe took her apprehension for a different sort of inadequacy, “Rey, how far from Junktown have you traveled?”</p>
<p>	She relaxed, her shame still hidden, “Never more than half a day’s walk. I couldn’t risk being caught outside alone past sunset.” </p>
<p>	“Smart,” Finn said. </p>
<p>	Poe nodded in agreement, “Well you’ll get plenty of miles in with us, and don’t worry about the night, it’s safe in groups.” </p>
<p>	Rey pursed her lips and nodded. She wasn’t so sure, and his apparent confidence unnerved her; especially since they had spent most of the previous night cowering, but she let him continue without complaint.</p>
<p>	“So Flagstaff is the goal, but first we need to head northeast into the Shenandoah Valley. We have a parcel we have to pick up from an agent; then we’ll head due east until we hit the Ohio-Tennessee outpost.” His eyes wandered to Paige, his gaze softening, “Paige will be due right about then. We’ll stay for a few weeks, I might send the rest of you ahead with another party, we’ll see.” </p>
<p>	“What’s the parcel?” Rose budged in between Rey and Poe, eyes scanning the map skeptically, “You haven’t said anything about a parcel before. If we deviate from the original path we’ll be cutting it <i>really</i> close for Paige.” </p>
<p>	Rey stepped away, letting them glare at one another. Paige looked entirely over-it, eyes scanning the horizon thoughtfully, she looked to Rey, and caught the scavenger watching. Smiling, she said, “They’re always like this. My sister and my husband, arguing over my wellbeing while I sit by silently.” </p>
<p>	“I think it means they love you,” Rey replied, offering an apologetic quirk of her mouth. Love was a rare thing in the wasteland. To have two people who loved you enough to fight over you? Rey was envious, though she would never say so. </p>
<p>	Paige hummed, then changed the subject. Beside them Rose and Poe were speaking in elevated tones. Finn was trying to moderate; he wasn’t doing a very good job. </p>
<p>	“So you’re Rey. I never really got a good look at you, you always move so fast.” </p>
<p>	Rey nodded, not knowing what to say. Of course she was quick. She had to be. If she were slow she’d have been killed a hundred times over by now, by falling scrap or blades, it made no difference. She was too quick for all of it. </p>
<p>	“When I’m not eight months pregnant I handle guns,” she smiled longingly. “I was second in command of the armory back in Flagstaff, before I followed Poe out here.” </p>
<p>	Suddenly Rey was much more interested in Paige. She was a gun-person. Rey had never even held a gun. She wanted to. So much power in one, simple implement. Though some of them were unwieldy, and ammunition became increasingly rare with each year between the present and the bombs dropping. Needing to flex her own knowledge of weaponry, she asked, “Ever used a crossbow?” </p>
<p>	Paige’s dark eyes flitted to Rey’s back, where she could feel her weapon’s reassuring weight; familiar and heavy. </p>
<p>	“No, but I’d like to, once the baby is born.” </p>
<p>	“I’ll show you how. It’s really not that hard. Would you show me a gun?” </p>
<p>	Paige laughed, it sounded like wind chimes, Beebee stirred beneath her, “I’ll do more than show you. I like you, Rey. I’m glad Finn has you along.”</p>
<p>	And just like that, before they had covered even an inch of broken road, Rey had made a friend. </p>
<p>	Her first friend, she thought. If she didn’t count Beebee the horse. </p>
<p>	Argument settled, Poe distributed long, macabre gas masks to all of his Resistance comrades, but there was none for Rey. He shrugged his shoulders apologetically and she waved him off. She had no interest in such old-world trivialities. The radiation was just as much a part of her as any aspect of the wastes. She was a new world girl, through and through. And new world girls didn’t need PPE. </p>
<p>Poe grabbed Beebee’s reigns and took the lead, followed by Rose, who chattered with her sister, and Finn, who occasionally joined in with gentle humor. Rey followed up the rear, silent, eyes wandering behind her goggles, watching. She knew the wasteland, she was born from it. She knew it’s whispers; the wind rattling in the dead trees, the splash of a foot in poisoned water. Poe was cocksure and haughty, but Rey knew the dangers of this land. </p>
<p>	She watched for threats, always; determined to see Paige to the birth of her child. </p>
<p>	Rey watched, waiting and ready, and prayed futilely that dusk would never come. </p>
<p>	But it came, and they survived, and then it came again, and with the help of a bonfire they kept the terrors of the night at bay. Slowly Rey became more concerned with the human threats of the waste than the animal. She suspected they were being followed. By day their pursuer remained hidden, but by night she would occasionally glimpse the flash of a torch in the distance. </p>
<p>	It made her uneasy. If they had been seen fleeing Junktown it could easily be the Order that was trailing them. </p>
<p>	“We’re being followed,” Rey said to Poe one evening as he readied the night’s bonfire. They had spent the day siphoning gas from every ancient, rusted shell of a car they passed. The canisters were full and sloshing wetly against Beebee’s flanks. </p>
<p>	He hummed, adjusting a piece of half rotten wood to his liking in the pyre, “What makes you think that? I haven’t seen anything, no dogs, no birds, certainly no people.”</p>
<p>	“At night I see fire sometimes, behind us. Like torches.” </p>
<p>	Poe shook his head dismissively, “We would hear something. There’s no way <i>two</i> caravans could travel this long without some sort of assault happening.” </p>
<p>	Rey grit her teeth, grip tightening on the kindling she held in her hands, “We’ve been very lucky so far, Poe. It’s going to run out eventually.” </p>
<p>	His eyes lifted from the stack of detritus and wood and lingered over Paige where she rested against the trunk of a black, dead tree. Her hands were resting delicately over her stomach while she laughed at something Rose said. </p>
<p>	“Okay, so say you’re right, what changes? We have to keep moving forward. There aren’t enough of us to effectively do double watch.” </p>
<p>	Rey sighed, he was right. All they could do was move forward and hope that their luck continued. </p>
<p>	“How far out are we from your parcel stop? We could fortify and wait for them to come to us there,” She offered, dropping her kindling into his pile. </p>
<p>	Behind them Finn cursed as he struggled to pitch their ancient tent. Rey refused to sleep in it, preferring the open ground where she could feel for vibrations and be gone into the night in a moment’s notice. </p>
<p>	Poe shook his head, “That would throw us off schedule. I have Paige to think about, we need to be somewhere with good medical personnel and equipment by the time she hits forty weeks.” </p>
<p>	Rey pursed her mouth, offering no further complaint. She wondered if Poe realized that Paige might not make it to forty weeks anyways, she wondered if he truly understood what a risk this exodus was. She sighed through her nose and left him to his fire, laying out her bedroll on the crest of a hill. </p>
<p>	She would watch the sunset from there, and take first watch like she always did. Oftentimes she played silent companion to later watches as well. While her compatriot would linger near the fire, shifting anxiously at every noise in the dark, she would remain supine but awake, eyes taking stock of the stars as she listened out into the blackness. </p>
<p>	Sometimes, when all was still, and even the wind seemed to be holding its breath, her mind would manufacture the sound of heavy hoofbeats echoing in the distance. And if she closed her eyes she could picture the mass of Kylo’s Ren’s black stallion tearing up the irradiated earth as he chased them down. </p>
<p>	Watching the sun begin its descent, fading light gracing the gentle slopes of the mountains with a soft, old-world sort of glow, Rey lifted her crossbow to her shoulder and peered through the scope she had modded onto it. </p>
<p>	In the distance she spotted a few half-collapsed houses standing in a semi-circle that had once been a cul-de-sac. Everything else around them was resorted to piles of rubble. Her scavenger’s spirit beckoned for her to go and venture into their depths in search of valuable supplies, but so far from Junktown she knew better. </p>
<p>	Old ruins like those made fine homes for berserkers, radiation zombies that fought ruthlessly, tearing flesh from bone with gnashing, gnarled teeth. The sun was damaging to their irradiated hides, but come dusk they hunted the land bare, making game hard to come by, and spelling the end for any poor scavenger out past sunset. </p>
<p>	The old-world homes could be home to other wasteland terrors, too. But Rey cared not to think about that. Berserkers could be dealt with if need be, when exposed to flame they went up like matches. Screaming, flailing matches. At least that was the knowledge that had been passed onto Rey by older, more seasoned scavengers. She personally had never encountered one close up. </p>
<p>	As the sun began to sink further, Poe lit the bonfire and they ate a meager meal of crackers and dry cheese. Rey kept most of the produce she had collected from Lor San Tekka to herself, knowing she would need the nutrition. A part of her felt guilty at not sharing with Paige, but she rationalized that it was unlikely either mother or child would survive. So best not to waste. </p>
<p>	Darkness fell and deepened and first watch passed uneventfully. Rey shook Finn awake to begin his vigil and settled onto her mat on the hill, but she quickly found that she was too anxious to sleep. Rolling onto her side she watched familiar little pinpricks of light bob in the distance, and she wondered passively if the terrible Kylo Ren was among their pursuers.  </p>
<p>	It troubled her, how much she feared him. Only a few glimpses had been enough to show her all the terror that he was. She believed every story she had ever heard, and she prayed to every old-world god that might listen that she might never fall into his hands. </p>
<p>	Then the snapping of a twig a ways down the hill had her sitting bolt upright. Shouldering her crossbow she retreated back towards Finn and the bonfire, eyes scanning the darkness.</p>
<p>	“<i>Finn</i>,” she hissed, and he stirred awake from where he had been dozing on the ground. “<i>Finn there’s something out there.</i>” </p>
<p>	Finn scrambled to his feet and unholstered his pistol, at which Rey shook her head violently. The sound of a gun firing would bring every irradiated terror in a five-mile radius running. </p>
<p>	Just then a ruddy, hairless creature crept up and over the crest of the hill. It’s eyes were blasted white, and its flesh was torn open across its left shoulder, revealing the working sinew beneath as it shifted and paced. </p>
<p>	It was eight feet long from snout to tail, and its feline ears, torn and notched, flicked curiously as it considered its quarry. </p>
<p>	“Turf cat,” Rey said. The descendents of old world cats that had escaped from zoos once the bombs fell. Thankfully, they tended to be solitary hunters, but they were not to be underestimated in their strength. “Finn, get a torch.”</p>
<p>	It was best not to engage if they didn’t have to. </p>
<p>	Sensing the commotion Poe poked his head out of the tent, blanching as he took in the scene unfolding outside. As it drew nearer Rey noted a piece of rusted rebar protruding from its back, left hip. </p>
<p>	“What is <i>that</i>,” Poe croaked, gazed locked onto its quivering pink hide. </p>
<p>	Finn, having lit a torch, waved it back and forth, toeing nearer to the creature. It panted and snarled, swiping a crooked, twisted paw out at the flame. </p>
<p>	“Get back!” Finn snapped, “Get the fuck out of here!” </p>
<p>	The cat twisted and hissed, but didn’t not back down. </p>
<p>	Biting her lip Rey decided she had no choice, she lined up a shot as Finn distracted the beast, aiming for it’s head as she cranked back her crossbow. </p>
<p>	“Poe,” she explained. “It’s tomorrow’s lunch.” </p>
<p>	At the last second the cat jerked away from the flame, and as Rey’s bolt flew it smacked wetly into the side of the creature’s neck rather than under the ear. It yowled and recoiled and Rey winced at the sound. There was no telling what else was waiting in the dark, listening. </p>
<p>	Finn took advantage of the cat’s distraction and lunged forward with his machete, striking at its jugular and sending it to the ground in a cacophony of wet gargling. </p>
<p>	As it died Rey rushed back to the crest of her hill, crossbow shouldered and ready to fire. But through the darkness she saw and heard nothing but the soft trill of insects. In the distance she could still see the flicker of torchers, closer now than they had ever been before. </p>
<p>	“Rey!” Poe called to her. The whole camp was awake now. Rose gaping at the dead cat while Paige peered curiously out through the slit of the tent. </p>
<p>	“What the fuck is this?” Poe demanded, toeing the dead cat’s skull with his boot. </p>
<p>	“Turf cat,” Rey explained. “You’ve really never seen one before?” </p>
<p>	Poe didn’t answer, which she took as a resounding ‘no’. It made her uneasy, how little these Resistance emissaries knew of the wastes that sustained them. They were disconnected from their world, caught up in a dead past. </p>
<p>	“The hide is good for waterproofing and also drying out for snacks. The meat is a bit too gamey, but could still save us in a pinch.” She explained, knowledgeably. </p>
<p>	“But it’s irradiated,” Poe said in flat denial.</p>
<p>	Rey rolled her eyes, “Poe, our whole world is irradiated. Meat is meat.” </p>
<p>	“Ew,” Finn made a face at the dead cat, watching how its black blood pooled thickly around its head. “I think I’ll pass.” </p>
<p>	Rose made a noise of agreement and Rey scoffed in disdain, “Whatever, it’s your hides, not mine.” </p>
<p>	Rey left them to do with the corpse as they pleased, turning back to her hill and those mysterious lights. Only now she could see the bobbing movements they made, and they were larger and closer than ever. They had bigger problems, then, than a dead turf cat.</p>
<p>	“Poe!” She shouted, disposing with any pretense of quiet. “We’re being pursued!”</p>
<p>	“So you’ve said,” he mumbled, still crouched over the cat. He had lifted its lip and was examining the yellow enamel of its fangs. </p>
<p>	“No, like, right now,” Rey panted, already gathering her things. “They must’ve heard the commotion. They’re getting really close, <i>now</i>.” </p>
<p>	Lifting a pair of binoculars to his eyes Poe crested the hill and peered out into the night. His whole body went tense, and he turned back to his comrades with a tight nod. </p>
<p>	“Pack up, quick. We’ve got company.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Please do let me know what you think! I don't get a lot of feedback on niche fics like this.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Wasteland Wanderer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks to everyone who's been leaving kudos and comments! I'm really appreciating the enthusiasm this little niche work is getting &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They fled through the darkness. Poe rode double with Paige atop Beebee as the rest of them ran. They had given up on any pretense of quiet as they tore through the night. Last they had seen those little <i>pinpricks</i> of light were racing toward them, honing in on the cat’s dying yowls. </p><p>	There was no time for speech, no time to strategize. All they could do was run. </p><p>	They had lost the trail, and would only find it again by daylight, but Rey didn’t care. They were racing along a dry creek bed, Poe leading by a wide fathom with the advantage of Beebee. But Rey could see Beebee’s hoofprints beaten into the hard packed earth, an obvious trail for their enemy to follow. </p><p>	For a moment Rey considered breaking away, breaking for the trees and trying her luck against the night on her own. Surely she would survive longer than the known Resistance envoy being tracked by what could only be the First fucking Order. She was a clever girl, and she knew she could navigate her way back to Junktown if need be. There she could pretend like nothing had ever happened. She could return to her shipping container and her cracked mirror and her purifier and live out the rest of her days as a scavenger beneath the Order’s thumb. </p><p>	That was a path she could choose for herself. And for a moment, lungs burning for air, feet pounding on irradiated earth, she considered it. </p><p>	Then her eyes rose from the ground, and she was met with the vision of Paige rocking awkward and uncomfortable on Beebee’s back. And Rey knew she could not abandon them. Not when there was still some fleeting hope for that woman and her unborn child. But she couldn’t let them continue on like this. </p><p>	“Poe!” She shouted, skidding to a halt, “Poe stop!”</p><p>	Thankfully he did, Beebee jerking so hard that he nearly unseated Paige, who caught herself roughly on his withers. </p><p>	“What?” He demanded, voice ragged. Even through the dark Rey could see the wildness and desperation in his eyes. No longer was he the proud Resistance fighter trekking through the wastes, he was now resorted to the desperate soon-to-be-father, fighting against unfavorable odds. </p><p>	“Beebee’s leaving tracks, they’ll be able to follow us wherever we go.” </p><p>	Poe looked down to the horse’s hooves and found Rey’s words to be true. Pressed into the ground were blunt half circles, obvious footprints amid a sea of blasted smooth clay and stone. </p><p>	“Shit.” </p><p>	“We have to leave him,” Rose said, her voice mournful. </p><p>	“No,” Rey disagreed, stepping forward. Her eyes settled on Paige’s belly for a moment, and she knew she was doing the right thing. In the wasteland it was often the ‘right thing’ that got scavengers killed. Rey knew that, but it did not stop her. </p><p>	“Give me the horse, I’ll lead them away from you guys. They’ll follow my trail while you escape.” </p><p>	Poe’s lips parted in surprise, “Are you sure?” </p><p>	“Yes.” Rey snapped, plucking the reins from his hands. “Now give me the horse before I change my fucking mind.” </p><p>	“Thank you, Rey.” Paige said as she dismounted, wincing painfully as her feet touched the hard ground. </p><p>	Rey only shook her head, anxiety mounting in her stomach. This could be a death sentence. It <i>would be</i> a death sentence if she didn’t move fast and think quickly. Again her eyes dropped to Paige’s belly. She was doing what was right. There was hope blossoming under that woman’s breast, and Rey would not allow it to squander. She would not have their blood on her hands. </p><p>	“Rey,” Poe caught her hand as she clammored awkwardly up and into the saddle. At Beebee’s rear Finn was unhooking the gasoline canisters, and Rose all the other essentials. He would be lighter on his feet now, small and fast. Perhaps she would outrun their pursuers. “You see that creekbed? Somewhere, out there,” he gestured vaguely to the east. “There is a river. Keep between the two. Follow them north and you’ll reach Fisher’s End. We’ll wait there as long as we can.” </p><p>	Red nodded sharply, for the first time feeling some amount of camaraderie with the man. They were in a lull in the hills which left them blind to the location of their pursuers. Beebee stirred nervously between her knees, becoming aware that something was wrong. </p><p>	“I need to go.” She spoke, pretending to be brave. “I don’t know how to ride a horse.” </p><p>	“It’s all in the legs,” Poe explained urgently, Rose and Finn were done. Now the Resistance members stood in a half circle around Rey, bidding her a swift farewell. Their shoulders were pointed away from her, ready to flee. “Just give him your heels, guide him with your legs. The reins are important, too. But it’s mostly in the legs.” </p><p>	Rey didn’t really understand, but she nodded anyways. There was no more time for a lesson. </p><p>	“Bye,” She said, and they all echoed the word before turning a sharp left towards the west. Rey, with an awkward press of her heels, brought Beebee into a trot, and continued along the trail they had been following. When she reached the peak of the next hill she looked to the dark horizon, shivering against a sudden breeze. </p><p>	The lights were there, obviously torches now. They bobbed hard and fast, indicative of mounted units. </p><p>	Cursing under her breath, Rey heeled Beebee a little harder, and he took off into a loping canter, the fastest they could manage in the dense forest of dead trees. Clinging tightly to the reins, Rey gritted her teeth and fought to stay upright. If she fell the horse would leave her behind and she would surely fall victim to the terrors of the night, if the Order did not find her first. </p><p>	They continued on like that for some time. Mounted and moving Rey became truly aware of the cold bite in the air. Beebee’s breath began to cloud the air and Rey could feel sweat gathering at his withers. </p><p>	With time she learned to lean into his gait, and it became easier to hold on, and less frightening each time a tree rushed past, nearly striking them.</p><p>	For a flash of a moment Rey had some hope that they might truly outrun their enemy. Beebee was moving quick and steady, and when Rey mustered the bravery to glance behind them as they passed over a stoney peak, she saw that the torchlights had been swallowed up in the trees. </p><p>	Then she heard a faint rumble. Soft at first, nearly lost in the din of heavy breath and pounding hooves. But steadily it increased in volume, until it was roaring all around them. Rey gasped in horror as a beam of orange light rushed over their surroundings. Realizing that the enemy wasn’t only mounted on horses. </p><p>	The motorbike was small and lightly armored, a single round lamp mounted on its front. It kicked up dirt and leaf litter as it tore across the ground, zipping between the trees with sharp, precise movements. </p><p>	“Fuck.” Rey said, and she used her legs and the reins to take Beebee to the right, eastward, hoping to find the river Poe had told her about. </p><p>	The bike continued to tear north for the time being, apparently having missed her in the darkness and beneath the volume of his own engine. But if there was one, there would be more, and Rey knew she needed to move quickly and decisively. </p><p>	Beebee was beginning to lose steam, stumbling over rocks and exposed roots as his pace began to falter. </p><p>	“No, no, no,” Rey pleaded, circling a hand over the fur of his sweaty, switching neck. “Please Beebee, just a little farther.” </p><p>	As if in understanding, he whickered softly and pressed forward again. His breath was ragged and rasping, but she felt his speed increase once more. Behind the pair the original motorbike was joined by the mechanical cries of several others, and also the distant snorting and shrieking over overworked horses. </p><p>	<i>This is it</i>, Rey thought. <i>This is where it ends.</i> </p><p>	And in that moment of acceptance she found herself selfishly regretting her decision not to abandon the Resistance party. The fresh fruits and vegetables she had taken from Tekka’s shack weighed heavily at her hip where they bounced. And Rey resented the fact that she would never taste them. All for a woman who would likely die in childbirth. </p><p>	When they reached the crest of another steep hill, Rey paused for a moment, letting her eyes drink in the bloody sunrise. Then, in the pale light of dawn, she spotted a patch of deep green amidst the scattered brown and black. A thatch of living wood. Rare but not unheard of in the appalachian expanse. </p><p>	Some plants had mutated in ways that allowed them to survive the radiation. Others were simply hardy and lived on from the days of the old world. Rey could not tell one sort from the other, and neither did she care. Sharply, she oriented Beebee towards the trees, pressing him onward despite the foam at his lips and the wheezing rasp of his breath. </p><p>	Leaves provided good cover. A place from which to initiate her final stand. </p><p>	When they reached the copse of trees, the din of the Order still pounding loud on their trail, Rey found it pressed up to the banks of a fast moving river. It’s black water rushed and broke over protruding boulders in foamy white caps. </p><p>	Rey’s mouth was suddenly very dry, but she had no time to drink. She dropped haphazardly down to the ground, and let go of the reins. Beebee rushed to the water to drink, and Rey began to scale the bare, lower limbs of a soaring pine tree. Splinters stuck in her fingers and needles scraped narrow red lines into her skin, but she did not stop. She could hear them coming closer, the roar of the engines, the thunder of hooves. </p><p>	When she reached a good height, she made the precarious leap between the pine and the bushier branches of a stout maple. It’s leaves were red with autumn and dense enough to provide sufficient cover. She scaled up and up, until the boughs creaked beneath her weight and the leaves bunched in around her claustrophobically. Then Rey unholstered her crossbow, pressed a bolt into place giving the weapon a hard crank, and waited.  </p><p>	They trickled through the trees like poisoned water. One after another, bikes first, then horses, parting around black trunks and filtering into the live copse. They stopped at the sight of Beebee at the water’s edge, cutting their engines and looking at one another beneath their tinted visors and helmets. </p><p>	Rey held her breath, hands quivering on her crossbow. </p><p>	<i>What are they waiting for?</i> She wondered. </p><p>	Her question was quickly answered, after the last of the peons had stalled there came the crunching of heavy hooves pounding through the fallen leaves. A familiar massive black stallion strutted snorting into view. Mounted on his back was the imposing figure of Kylo Ren, masked, the blade of his massive sword rosy in the budding light of dawn. </p><p>	“Perhaps they sent the horse away to mislead us,” one of the mounted men offered, his horse pawing impatiently at the earth. </p><p>	Kylo Ren grunted softly, urging his mount forward towards Beebee, who now faced the Order party apprehensively. </p><p>	“No,” Rey shivered at the sound of his voice, deep, smooth and dangerous. She clung tighter to the rough bark of her perch. “The maneuvers it made… there was a rider. Fan out, search the area.” </p><p>	“Yessir.” They all replied, collectively. </p><p>	“Mitaka,” His masked face turned slightly towards the initial rider who had spoken. “Collect the horse. He is of good breeding and will be useful to us.” </p><p>	Rey winced as the rider dismounted and moved to take full stock of Beebee. Poe would kill her for losing him, that was if they ever managed to reunite. She was far from in the clear, clinging ever tighter to the trunk of the tree as the Order soldiers began to spread out and search. </p><p>	Kylo Ren remained where he was, mounted and waiting amidst the trees. He inclined the black face of his mask, observing the bright autumn leaves over his head. Rey held her breath, finger tensing over the trigger of her crossbow. </p><p>	It could be her only chance, she thought. A last ditch effort while the enemy was spread thin. Biting down hard enough of her lip to taste blood, she shakily lifted the sight of her crossbow to her eye. First she observed the heft of his sword, then the handgun holstered neatly on his hip. His body was wide and swathed in black, overlaid with dark pieces of heavy black armor. He wore a hood over the ramshackle horror of mask, shadowing the detail of it. </p><p>	Rey didn’t know what the armor was made from, so she was uncertain how much damage one of her bolts could inflict. Carefully, her eyes moved over him once more. Observing each gap in the heavy ebony plates. The widest seemed to be on his right side, just beneath where she estimated his ribcage to end. An expanse of black cloth void that seemed to ride up directly against his flesh. </p><p>	With his arms set forward, resting on the pommel of his saddle, she had a clear shot. Rey sucked in a breath through her teeth and took aim, counting softly down from ten as the wind picked up and the leaves began to shift. </p><p>	Her hiding place betrayed, horror seized her chest as the warlord’s face tilted up and in her direction. Spotted, there was a long, tense, silent moment before either of them reacted. She could feel his heavy gaze on her through his mask, it made her whole body burned with anticipation and fear. Everything seemed to move slowly. Kylo shouted, reaching for his gun as Rey’s bolt whistled through the air, slamming into his side with a wet <i>thunk</i> that sent him careening down to the forest floor. </p><p>	All at once the world came alive around her. Rey leapt from her high perch, rolling as she struck the ground to mitigate her impact. The sound of gunfire lit up the forest, echoing wildly between the trees as they misfired in the confusion. </p><p>	Rey zig zagged, but still a bullet grazed her arm, tearing the leather of her jacket and the bindings underneath. She yelped, eyes watering at the sharp, stinging pain, but she didn’t stop moving towards the dark rushing water of the river. It was taking on a purple hue with the rising sun, it’s depths offering her only chance at refuge. </p><p>	Another bullet whizzed by her ear, making it ring as it just barely missed her flesh. Then she was diving into the freezing river, irradiated water swallowing her up as her lungs swelled with precious air. She swam down until her belly touched the silty bottom, then she allowed the current to propel her as she kicked forward. </p><p>	Above her bullets riddled the water, blindly fired. They all missed and Rey’s lungs began to burn with the effort of remaining submerged. Her wound stung, and she kicked and twisted and struggled along, grateful for the current that carried her. She had never learned to swim, the skill was viewed as unnecessary in the wastes. Water was poison, after all. So Rey only had instinct to guide her as dirty water filled up her vision. </p><p>	Eventually she broke the surface, gulping down another breath of precious air before breaching the surface once more. Somewhere in the distance she could still hear gunfire and shouting, but it was growing further away. Beneath the roiling surface she could pretend that there was no sound at all beyond the thundering of her own heart in her ears. </p><p>	She carried on, paddling and gasping and diving, for what felt like eons. The coldness of the water seeped into her clothes, through her skin and to her very bones. A metallic taste filled her mouth forebodingly, but she dare not stop. Not until the sun was rising over the trees, and warm beams of light filtered through the dirty water to her eyes. </p><p>	Exhausted from her swim and shivering with the cold, Rey crawled out of the river and onto a muddy bank. The world around her was silent save for the occasional bird call and the rush of water at her back. Panting, she dragged herself to her knees and sucked in long, desperate breaths. The trees around her were black and dead. The hills were steeper and taller, more like mountains now. </p><p>	Rey’s whole body shook as she rose to her feet, shucking off her soaked jacket and tying it around her waist. Her crossbow was lost somewhere in the rush of the river, but her knives were still secure in their place across her chest. </p><p>	Uncertain of her location, she began to amble along with the river. Poe had said it would lead her to Fisher’s End, but there was no telling if she had already passed it up in her escape. </p><p>	The world was cold and empty, and she could not forget the feeling of Kylo Ren’s terrible gaze upon her. Rey regretted ever leaving Junktown. Surely the wastes would claim her now, that was if Kylo Ren’s band of soldiers did not catch up to her first. </p><p>	She wondered what about Poe would merit the scourge of the wastes giving personal chase. Then she supposed that it didn’t really matter. Rey was a dead woman walking, if she didn’t find this settlement by sundown berserkers or turf cats, or some other manner of monster would take her. </p><p>	Still, she marched on into the abyss.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I made a Twitter. It is private so you will have to request to follow me. Here is the link: <a href="https://twitter.com/bitt3rbones">X</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Walking With Death</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A short but sweet midnight update &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rey walked. </p>
<p>	The orange sun began its blistering trek across the sky. It dried her clothes and then some, making her movements stiff and awkward as she was forced to don her jacket once more. The leather shielded her from the scorching daylight. The last thing she needed were extensive sunburns to compound her existing struggles. </p>
<p>	Weak and wounded, she had been forced to abandon much of her armor; her chest piece and all the leather scale from her right arm. It had rubbed and chafed at her raw flesh, making her ill with pain, vomiting clear bile into the mud. When she examined the wound she found it to be deeper than she’d initially thought. A gouge running the width of her bicep. Already it was swollen and red with the onset of infection, the filthy river water had seen to that. </p>
<p>	But despite all this, Rey was a scavenger, and she would not simply lay down and accept her fate, no matter how hopeless her circumstances. She was too stubborn, and her will to live too strong, even in the face of what seemed like certain death. </p>
<p>	So Rey walked. </p>
<p>	And she walked. Until her feet began to blister in the sweaty swamp of her boots and the sun scalded its presence into the exposed skin of her neck and ears. </p>
<p>	She walked until her mouth was desert dry and the trees doubled then tripled in her vision. </p>
<p>	Rey walked until she could walk no more. She walked until the heat had leached all of the strength from her bones. She walked until her knees buckled, skin splitting as she dropped to the shale scattered ground. Then she doubled forward, the heels of her hands scraping, fresh wounds filling up with mud from the river’s bank. </p>
<p>	Her wound throbbed and her skin felt tight, burning insufferably hot. Her final conscious action was to stretch out a quivering, bloody hand towards the cool rush of the river. If she was going to die, she wanted to do so in its cold depths. </p>
<p>	The sun set over her body, night swallowing her up where she lay. Perhaps she heard hooves thundering wetly down the river bank. Perhaps she heard berserkers screeching in the distance. Maybe she heard radwolves howling hungrily at the moon. </p>
<p>	A dozen ways to die awaited her in the blackness, but none came. </p>
<p>	Rey slept. </p>
<p>	When she opened her eyes once more it was with the wan dawn. Pale light filling up her vision with its succor. But she lacked the strength to keep them open long, her lids drooped shut once more, eyes stinging. </p>
<p>	There were hands under her arms and voices in her ears. One was low and gravelly, masculine. The other was higher, boyish and sing-song in a strange way. </p>
<p>	“She’s light,” the man said. </p>
<p>	“Skinny,” the boy replied. “Do you think she’s with the Resistance, too?” </p>
<p>	“Maybe… look at this,” she was lowered back to the ground. Her limp, painful arm was lifted and twisted to be better observed. “Wounded. Looks like a bullet graze.” </p>
<p>	“Looks infected,” the boy prodded the wound with a finger. Rey moaned in resulting discomfort, futilely attempting to twist away. She was too weak, too harried by the elements. </p>
<p>	“Let’s… </p>
<p>	The words were lost once more in the white noise behind her burning eyes. Again, she dipped back into the helpless midnight of unconsciousness. </p>
<p>	Time passed. And Rey was gone, gone, gone… until she wasn’t. </p>
<p>	All at once awareness came flooding back, overwhelming her senses. She sat bolt upright clawing at her chest, coughing and hacking, attempting to expel phantom water from her lungs. </p>
<p>	“Shut her up!” Someone hissed, and then there were hands on her shoulders and hair. Gentle and comforting. </p>
<p>	<i>I shot Kylo Ren</i>. She remembered, shutting her eyes and dropping her head to her lap. She could feel the wet <i>thunk</i> of her bolt slamming into his flesh in her bones. She tried to come to grip with her surroundings, but she could still feel the intensity of his eyes on her. Oh, how she <i>burned</i>. </p>
<p>	“Shhhh,” a voice soothed. Paige, it was Paige. The same woman who she had nearly died for. “It’s okay, it’s just the infection that’s making you warm.” </p>
<p>	“Stop talking!” It was the gravelly voice from before, low and stern. </p>
<p>	Rey opened her hazel eyes and found herself resting in a dingy cot. The room was dark and the air was thick with smoke from a dead fire. There was an odd, almost sickening scent that attacked Rey’s nostrils. Four wooden walls encompassed them. In the far corner an old man huddled under a heavy blanket, next to him was a woman of like age. In her arms was curled a dirty faced boy of twelve-odd years. </p>
<p>	“We need to be quiet,” Paige cautioned in a hushed tone. “We’re in Fisher’s End, with friends. In a few hours it’ll be dawn.” </p>
<p>	“<i>For the love of God</i>,” the old man hissed through yellow teeth. “Shut. Up.” </p>
<p>	Paige pursed her lips into a thin line and leaned back against the wall. Her heavy, pregnant body was swathed in a filthy, threadbare blanket. Rey frowned at her, but she shook her head to indicate it wasn’t worth a fight. </p>
<p>	The tiny shack fell quiet once more. Weak and thirsty, Rey’s eyes searched the room more thoroughly. There were dead fish hanging from the rafters, which explained the foul scent. They glowed faintly in the dark, their dead eyes glassy, and Rey surmised that, if all was perfectly quiet, she would be able to <i>hear</i> the sheer amount of radiation humming off of them. </p>
<p>	Taking note not to eat any fish, her eyes wandered to the wooden door. It was made of a thin sheet of plywood, but reinforced with several more planks. It was also barred, and sealed with a heavy, rusted chain against the night. </p>
<p>	From the corner the old man watched her with cold eyes. Slowly he lifted a finger to his thin, chapped lips. Pleading for continued silence. The boy snored softly in the old woman’s arms. Shoulders rising and falling rhythmically. </p>
<p>	Rey blinked at them then rolled onto her good side, facing the wood boards of the wall. Smacking her dry lips she glared into the rifts and lines of the wall, hoping for dawn to come soon. She was unbearably thirsty, but she doubted the old man would appreciate her moving from the confines of her cot, even in search of water. </p>
<p>	As her eyes wandered the wall, they settled on a crack in the wood. It was wide enough to glimpse some of the outside world. She saw a stretch of hard ground illuminated by a shaft of blue moonlight. </p>
<p>	Then, so fast that she nearly missed it, something darted by. The shadowy movement was accompanied by the rhythmic patter of bare footsteps. They came to a sudden halt, and a low, guttural clicking pierced the serene vale of the night. </p>
<p>	Eyes widening, Rey gripped her damp blanket and twisted painfully onto her other side. The abrupt pressure on her wound nearly made her cry out, but she pressed a fist to her mouth to stifle the sound. </p>
<p>	The old man, who was still watching, gave a slow, confirming nod. </p>
<p>	<i>Berserkers</i>. </p>
<p>	That would explain his insistence on silence. They were drawn by sound, blinded long before, on the same day the bombs dropped over their once-mortal heads. </p>
<p>	Rey shivered and carefully lifted the edge of her blanket over her eyes. Beside her Paige lifted a hand, resting it on Rey’s knee reassuringly. </p>
<p>	<i>Where are the others?</i> Rey wanted to ask. <i>Where are Poe and Rose and Finn?</i> Had their naivete finally done them in? </p>
<p>Paige only looked to her with gentle eyes. Outside several more shadows darted past. Rey could hear the wet rattle of their breathing; irradiated air ballooning their rotten lungs. </p>
<p>Drawing in a slow, pensive breath, Rey closed her eyes and waited. </p>
<p>But she could not sleep. Her throat was too dry, and her stomach was tied up in painful, hungry knots. She wondered after her satchel, filled up with Lor San Tekka’s valuable, tasty stock. And behind her closed eyes the memory of Kylo Ren’s dark visage still haunted her. He had <i>seen</i> her. He knew her face now, which was even worse than if he knew her name. A name could be anyone’s, but a face? A face was truly unique, especially in the sparsely populated wasteland. </p>
<p>Even with that reassuring hand on her knee, and the warmth of her body so near, Rey wished she had not stood up for Paige. She wished she had never agreed to Poe’s foolish flight from Junktown. The woman was dead anyways, as it were. Pregnancy was a death sentence, childbirth was a noose. Rey had no hope now. None if it had been worth the wound on her arm which still threatened her life, nothing was worth the horrid pit that had formed in her belly, all tracing back to Kylo Ren’s fiery stare.</p>
<p>The Resistance was thrice damned as far as she was concerned. And yet she had thrown her lot in with them. </p>
<p>Eventually the shadows passed, and even the old man’s breathing evened out. </p>
<p>Rey kept her eyes closed and her lips sealed. </p>
<p>Dawn came.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for the continued support! I know this fic is <i>super</i> niche but I really enjoy writing it.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Dead Water</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Another short but important chapter. Also I changed it to slow burn bc I wanna take my time with this story, y'all. I promise you'll get some reylo goodness eventually.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Rey opened her eyes again it was well past dawn. The shack was empty, and she shivered in the cold, damp air. </p>
<p>	She found a canteen of water waiting for her beside the cot, and next to it a plate of boiled fish. Remembering how the fish had glowed the night before she chose to forego breakfast, but she drank deeply of the water, soothing her dry throat and cracked lips. </p>
<p>	The door was no longer barred, and the rusted chains that had held it were now coiled up on the floor. Rey pushed off of the cot, wincing as her wound pulled. Recalling how feverish she had felt before, she examined the graze carefully. It was bound up in dirty linen, the fringes of sharp smelling herbs protruding from either side of the bandage. She didn’t recognize the plants, but her fever was gone and her skin no longer felt taut and swollen, so she left it alone.</p>
<p>Her whole body ached as she stood and stretched. Sore from her impromptu swim. She touched her fingertips to her toes then lunged to warm up her legs. Her calves twinged and she winced, but felt slightly less like a drowned cat once she was through.  </p>
<p>	Beyond the thin wood of the door she could hear muffled voices. And after doing a quick sweep of the shack she discovered that her satchel must have been stashed elsewhere. </p>
<p>	“It’s probably too much to hope that they didn’t go through it,” Rey mumbled to herself, worrying over the food items she’d had squirreled away. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Through the door Rey found herself bathed in bright sunlight. The air stank of standing water. The entire settlement of Fisher’s End consisted of a half dozen ramshackle homes sandwiched between a black, stagnant pond and the dark, warning rush of the river. There were two unfamiliar men casting large nets into the river, and the boy from the night before was navigating the pond with a long stick and a kayak. </p>
<p>	“You’re up,” it was the old man from the night before. He was barefoot and coated in mud up to his knees. Over his shoulder was strung a rope of tiny, malformed fish.</p>
<p>	“Where’s the stuff you found me with?” Rey demanded. Seeing his bare feet had made her acutely aware of that fact that her own shoes had been removed. The grit of the gravelly earth rubbed uncomfortably against her calloused soles. </p>
<p>	The old man tutted at her, and shifted the fish as he stood up straighter, “Not even going to introduce yourself after we save your life, eh? Just gonna start making demands of us?” </p>
<p>	“I didn’t ask you to help me,” she expected less than nothing from others, especially in such intense situations such as the one she’d found herself in. Independence was key to survival, but also could lead to a very lonely death. </p>
<p>	The old man snorted, “Whatever, you ungrateful little—</p>
<p>	“Rey!” Rose emerged from an adjacent shack, her face split with a wide smile, “You’re awake! How are you feeling?” </p>
<p>	She stopped in front of Rey and lifted the scavenger’s hands into her own. Her eyes were bright, the skin of her fingers smooth, soft and free of calluses. Rey blinked at her confusedly, unused to such enthusiasm or care. </p>
<p>	Seeing her apprehension Rose dropped her hands and took a respectful step backwards, “How are you feeling?” </p>
<p>	“Sore,” Rey admitted. “But I’ll be alright.”</p>
<p>	“We found your crossbow, girl. Not that you’ll thank me.” The old man cut in again.</p>
<p>	Something like excitement bubbled in Rey’s gut. Her crossbow. Her weapon of choice. It wasn’t lost. </p>
<p>	“Where is it, and where’s my bag? My extra bolts were inside.” </p>
<p>	“See,” the old man rolled his cold blue eyes, looking to Rose with incredulity. “<i>Ungrateful</i>.”</p>
<p>	Rey puffed up and Rose stepped between the two of them, “Please stop it, both of you. Rey, this is Luke Skywalker, he’s with the Resistance. He’s a friend.” <br/>	“They tell me you’re a scavenger out of Junktown,” Luke said, eyeing her skeptically. “That’s rough country, not sure I believe it, girl as small as you…” </p>
<p>	Now it was Rey’s turn to roll her eyes. She had nothing to prove to the old man, though his condescension was distinctly irritating. </p>
<p>	“Just tell me where my crossbow is.” </p>
<p>	Luke snorted, the fish on his back heaved as he sured up his grip on the rope, “Mara stashed them somewhere. Go bother her some.” </p>
<p>	Rey sniffed at him indignantly, glaring at his curved back as he walked away. It was rare to see someone so old alive in the wasteland, let alone on their feet and working. He was old enough to have witnessed the bombs drop, she surmised. And that would explain why he was such a fucking miser.</p>
<p>	Rose worried the hem of her dirtied, threadbare shirt, watching Luke’s retreat towards one of the shacks, “Sorry about him. I promise he isn’t always that bad.” </p>
<p>	“You act like you know him well.” </p>
<p>	“He used to live in Flagstaff with the rest of us, he’s General Organa’s twin brother. Skywalker isn’t his actual name, just one he’s taken on over the years.” </p>
<p>	Rey chuffed but said no more. Given names were often changed in the wastes, but Skywalker was a ridiculous name to choose for yourself.</p>
<p>	“Come on,” Rose took her hand again, more sure of herself this time. “I’ll take you to Mara. I promise she’s much more friendly than Luke.” </p>
<p>	Rose led her to the largest of the shacks, made entirely from rusted sheets of corrugated metal. Inside the floor was dirt, but there was a real, functioning electric light hanging from the ceiling. There were several cots butted up against the north wall, and a small wooden writing desk pressed to the south. There was a small fire pit made of black iron burning low in the room’s center, a tea kettle resting neatly beside it. Paige was resting in one of the cots, her hands folded neatly over the impressive swell of her abdomen. The old woman from the night before, who must have been Mara, was sitting at the writing desk.</p>
<p>	The old woman smiled at them, her teeth astoundingly straight and white. Her eyes were the deepest green Rey had ever seen, greener than all the forests in appalachia. </p>
<p>	“It’s good to see you up Rey. Any lingering discomfort or fever?” </p>
<p>	“No… I take it you’re the person who treated me, then. Thank you,” Rey inclined her head slightly in deference, taking on a more diplomatic approach than she had with Luke. Already she felt more at ease in this woman’s presence. </p>
<p>	Paige stirred on her cot, eyelids fluttering at the noise. </p>
<p>	“It’s nothing,” Mara replied, and she lifted a steaming cup of tea off of the desk, pressing it to her thin lips. The cup was chipped, but Rey could still make out the floral pattern printed across it’s weathered surface. </p>
<p>	“Um… Luke said you might know where my stuff is? I’m missing my stachel, my crossbow, and my boots.” </p>
<p>	Mara nodded, “Yes. The only thing that isn’t soaked through is the crossbow, but I’ll make sure you have everything back by this evening. I had my son stash it all away.” </p>
<p>	Son? That boy she had seen was Luke and Mara’s son? Rey didn’t understand how that could be, the boy looked to be around the age of twelve, the older couple could easily have been in their seventies. </p>
<p>	“Anakin is adopted, you see,” the old woman continued on casually. “His mother died under my care. Bled out in childbed. So Luke and I took him in.” </p>
<p>	On her cot Paige sighed, rolling heavily onto her side, “That doesn’t make me feel much better.” </p>
<p>	Rose frowned and dropped to her knees next to her sister, “Stop it. You’re going to be fine.” </p>
<p>	Mara remained quiet, and Rey saw the sadness in her emerald eyes as she beheld the sisters. It made the scavenger feel suddenly cold, dread pooling thick in her stomach. </p>
<p>	“How long do you think you’ll be staying here?” Mara asked softly. The real question lingered in the air between the women. <i>Will Paige be staying here to give birth?</i></p>
<p>	“I don’t know,” Rose answered without looking away from her sister. “Poe says we need to go soon, though. The First Order had to have seen Rey escape down river, they have to know that we were headed this way.” </p>
<p>	Rey scowled. Rose sounded a touch ungrateful considering everything she had risked. She had nearly drowned, and had shot Kylo Ren in her escape. But she had yet to receive any thanks. </p>
<p>	The memory of Kylo Ren made her shudder. She wouldn’t soon forget the feel of his eyes on her, attempting to pin her down with their intensity. He knew her face, if they met again he would surely remember the visage of the woman who shot him and escaped. </p>
<p>	“Speaking of Poe,” Paige propped herself up on her elbows, wincing uncomfortably as she redistributed her weight. “Rey, he’ll be wanting to speak with you about what happened and what you saw. Please don’t fight.”</p>
<p>	“Why would we fight?” Rey crossed her arms, puzzled and defensive. </p>
<p>	Paige shook her head slowly from side to side, “He’s just got a lot on his mind between the baby and I, and leading our group.” </p>
<p>	Rey pursed her mouth and promised nothing. </p>
<p>	The rest of the day inched along slowly. The sky took on a greenish tint as clouds began to gather overhead. The boy, Anakin, returned Rey’s belongings to her. She found that Mara had been right, her boots and her satchel were both still damp. In a panicked rush she dug down to the bottom of her bag and produced a filthy plastic bag wrapped carefully around thin slip of aged paper, frantically pulling it open she sighed in relief to find the picture within undamaged. </p>
<p>	She brushed her fingers over her mother’s face, tracing over familiar cheekbones and large round eyes. For a moment she felt safe and at ease. </p>
<p>	All the food was still in her bag, though some of the glass jars had shattered on the rocks as she had attempted to swim, leaving her with water tainted berries and peppers. She tossed those into the river, along with all the broken glass. Then she set to counting her few remaining crossbow bolts. </p>
<p>	Unlike the weapon itself, her quiver hadn’t been recovered by her saviors. So she was left with seven bolts. Seven, precious projectiles with which to defend herself and the others. She counted them more than once, knowing that she would need to make each of those shots count. </p>
<p>	Rey could still recall the sound of her shot landing cleanly in Kylo Ren’s side. She hoped she would never be in the position to shoot him again. She hoped she never saw him again for the rest of her days. The distance between them had been too far for his sword to reach, if they met again she might not be so lucky. </p>
<p>	Eventually Poe found her loitering on the river’s edge. His gate was brisk and sure, and she could sense his anger before he even opened his smug, Resistance loving mouth. </p>
<p>	“Where’s my horse, Rey?” He demanded, muscling into her personal space with his broad shoulders and imposing eyes. “What happened to Beebee?” </p>
<p>	“He’s a horse, Poe.” Rey crossed her arms defensively, standing up straighter and refusing to cower under his stare. </p>
<p>	“He’s not just a horse. He’s a friend, and he’s the only way we can travel with Paige as she is. What the fuck happened to him?”</p>
<p>	Rey’s face felt hot, anger building her chest, but also guilt. Beebee had carried her sure and fast and far, but she hadn’t had a choice in the end. “I had to leave him behind, Poe. The Order caught up to us, Kylo Ren was leading them. I didn’t have a choice.” </p>
<p>Poe’s face reddened and his eyes darkened. A pronounced vein twitched on his temple as he clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides. His words came stiff and threatening, “There is <i>always</i> a choice.”</p>
<p>“You weren’t there.” Rey snapped, holding her ground. “And why the fuck was Kylo-fucking-Ren after you anyways? I thought you guys were just recruiters.”</p>
<p>Her accusation through Poe over the edge, and he caught her swiftly by the front of her tank top before she could jerk away. His quivering knuckles twisted in the dirty fabric and he lifted her up and onto her toes, brown eyes glinting dangerously. </p>
<p>“I <i>needed</i> that fucking horse, <i>Rey</i>,” the words were short and jilted, spoken through his clenched teeth. “What the fuck am I supposed to do now?” </p>
<p>Rey gripped his wrist tightly, digging her nails into the taut tendons that held her in the air. Her eyes flashed in outrage and her nostrils flared as she spat back into his face, “I save your fucking lives and this is what I get? I get fucking shot for you and your band of merry idiots and <i>this</i> is how you thank me? I should have left all to die!”</p>
<p>Then with all the strength she had and all the leverage she could muster, she slammed her balled fist brutally into Poe’s jaw. He dropped her, and she landed on her ass and hands as he reeled backwards, cursing and cupping his face. </p>
<p>“Bitch!” He shouted, and finally the rest of the tiny settlement became aware of their squabble. Finn met them first, looking back and forth between them in confusion. Clearly Poe was hurt, but Rey hadn’t yet risen from her place in the dirt. </p>
<p>Raindrops began to patter around them, light at first then more insistently. In the distance lightning flashed sickly viridian and thunder rolled amidst the clouds. </p>
<p>“What happened?” Finn asked, hands raised from his sides as if the will each of them to remain where they were. </p>
<p>“She fucking punched me!” Poe shouted, dropping his hand momentarily to reveal the swelling that had already begun to take hold. </p>
<p>Rey rose shakily to her feet. Knuckles sore, but anger satisfied, “He had it coming.” </p>
<p>Rain wetted her shoulders and hair, and she didn’t care for the prospect of liquid radiation showering over her head, “You guys figure your shit out. I’m done trying to help you.” </p>
<p>She retreated back to the shack she had awakened in. Behind her Finn was joined by Rose in calling her name, but neither came after her physically. Once inside she returned to her cot and her wet boots and drenched bag. She plopped down flat on her back and traced the lines in the wooden ceiling with her eyes. </p>
<p>Then she rolled onto her side and produced her photograph once more. What would her mother have to say about this? What gentle, guiding words would she have offered to her wayward child? </p>
<p>Rey couldn’t imagine them, her mind humming with soft silence as she tried to summon the words. There was nothing. She pulled her knees to her chest and resigned herself to think.</p>
<p>Some time later Mara delivered her supper, clearing away the uneaten fish from breakfast. It was a few chunks of fish speared on a stick, charred black along with the paltry vegetables that sandwiched them. </p>
<p>Knowing that she couldn’t afford to skip another meal, Rey ate in silence, appreciating the lightness of the fish and the tough flesh of the vegetables. After, belly blissfully full and feeling warm all over, Rey reclined back onto her cot and allowed her eyes to drift shut. She was still exhausted from her flight, her wound still ached, and she still buzzed with the memory of Kylo Ren. </p>
<p>She waited, but no one else came to speak with her that night. She was entirely alone, dozing in the silence of evening, that was until the berserkers began their slow, methodical trek through the village. A routine that would become quite familiar in the coming days.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This actually got 1k hits which is waaaay more than I expected from something so niche. Thanks to everyone who's reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Steel Colts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I imply Rey may be bisexual in this chapter bc that is my headcanon for her character. I promise the only ship she will be a part of in this fic is reylo. </p>
<p>On that note, Kylo will be making a grand appearance soon! I just want to build to it properly rather than forcing interaction and romance in the first arc. &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They spent three tense days and nights at Fisher’s End, Rey quickly learned that Luke Skywalker was the contact Poe had been tasked with meeting. Whatever information or goods they may have exchanged, Rey couldn’t say, but she watched them suspiciously. </p>
<p>She hadn’t yet thrown her lot in with the Resistance. To her their goals were ultimately meaningless, this journey she was on was simply a means to an end. Or perhaps if she spun it around a few times and looked at it differently; it was the means to a new beginning. She had nowhere to go but forward. Kylo Ren had seen her face just before she’d landed a bolt neatly under his ribs. There was nothing left for her in Junktown so long as the Order ruled over it. </p>
<p>The tension between Rey and Poe had begun to abate on its own, though he still nursed an ugly purple-black bruise on his face. Rose kept an eye of the two of them whenever they were in close proximity to one another, always ready to diffuse an argument. </p>
<p>But another argument never erupted. Perhaps because of how the initial spat had so obviously upset Paige. Neither of them wanted to see her hurt. Even Rey, who still somewhat regretted her decision to sacrifice herself for the group, prayed that the soon-to-be-mother might survive. </p>
<p>It was on the morning of the fourth day that Poe looked sadly between his wife and the door which opened onto the wastes, his mouth was drawn into a thin line. He’d never said it, but Rey knew he was hoping Paige might go into labor and deliver while they still had the assistance of Mara and the other villagers. But time was running out, they were lucky Kylo Ren hadn’t found them yet. They were like rats hiding in the shadows as a cat passed them by and by, drawing nearer with each shuddering draw of air. </p>
<p>“We can’t stay here any longer,” he said, exasperated. “We have to keep moving, General Organa is waiting for our arrival in Flagstaff.” </p>
<p>Rey snorted at the word <i>general</i>. It was quaint and antiquated all at once. How very old world. But she sobered when she watched Paige’s mask of solemnity fall, all of Rey’s wry mirth fading away. </p>
<p>Paige was gentle and kind. Paige was a friend, in a way. Rey didn’t want to watch her die. Not in Fisher’s End, and not in the wastes either. </p>
<p>Despite the concern evident on everyone’s faces, no one argued. Not even Mara, whose voice of reason had been the thing that kept them so long. </p>
<p>“I told you, you can take one of our asses,” Luke said grimly, leaning in the doorway. In the intervening days Rey had only found his presence to be more and more grating. He was a curmudgeon of the highest degree. A former hermit of the Appalachian forests with a stick so far up his ass Rey swore she could see it when he spoke. </p>
<p>“Thank you,” Rose spoke softly. Her eyes were wet, voice soft and heavy all at once. </p>
<p>“What’s so important that we can’t stay put for a few more days?” Rey finally snapped, crossing her arms.</p>
<p>“It’s not…” Poe sighed and swiped a hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You know Kylo Ren is tracking us, he has to be. It’s not just about the intel.” </p>
<p>“It’s been days,” Rey argued, though Paige’s sad eyes begged her to stop. “If he hasn’t come already he’s not coming at all.” </p>
<p>“You don’t know that. We don’t know that. And if this intel gets into his hands we’re <i>all</i> screwed, Rey. Not just the Resistance, the whole wasteland. From the NCR to the Commonwealth.” </p>
<p>Rey rolled her eyes, “Whatever. You faction idiots constantly talk about the dire straits we’re in. I don’t believe it for a second. But <i>whatever</i>.” </p>
<p>More often than not Resistance and Order propaganda would make wild claims of the end times. That only <i>they</i> could restore what was lost. That only <i>their</i> ideology could <i>save</i> the degenerate wastelanders. Sometimes it seemed like they’d forgotten the world had already ended. It was time to start over.</p>
<p>Poe’s nostrils flared, and he insisted, “We leave at noon.” </p>
<p>He stormed out to go with Luke and see about the donkey. Mara followed after them, tailed by little Anakin, who was apparently named for Luke’s father. A real general of old world armies. Mara had even shown a dusty, faded picture of what their family had looked like before the war. The nostalgia in her emerald eyes had almost been enough to make Rey sympathize with the Resistance’s cause. Almost. </p>
<p>Soon enough only Rose, Paige, and Rey remained in the dimly lit shack. The younger sister knelt beside the older, cradling her hands in her own. </p>
<p>Rey wasn’t sure what to do with herself. Her few belongings had been packed and ready to go since day one. Clearing her throat awkwardly she made to exit the shack, thinking she might take a walk around one of the ponds and search for the tracks of animals she lacked the bolts to hunt. </p>
<p>“Rey, wait,” Paige called softly from her bed. A visible sheen of sweat had gathered over the skin of her face. It was warm out despite the leaves turning, mosquitos had been biting in the night. </p>
<p>Ray paused and faced her curiously. </p>
<p>“Rose, fetch my satchel please,” Rose tilted her head curiously, but did as she was bid. She fetched a leather bag from behind Mara’s desk. It was stuffed full of supplies and, Rey noted, a few dirty plush toys meant for the coming baby. They were soft, both pink and blue with shiny black button eyes. A rock settled in Rey’s stomach at the sight of them. </p>
<p>Paige wriggled into a sitting position and began to rifle through the bag’s contents, neatly setting aside each item she didn’t need so she might repack when she was finished. Eventually, when she must have been nearing the bottom, she produced a smooth holster of black leather. The butt of a gun, shiny and plated with wood, protruded from it. Then she produced two boxes of clattering ammunition. </p>
<p>Holding the holster towards Rey gun first, she said, “It’s not loaded. Go ahead, take it, see how it feels in your hand.”</p>
<p>Rey swallowed hard, oddly apprehensive. She’d wielded a crossbow for years, which could do as much damage as a bullet. But somehow a gun was more dangerous, less thought was required in loading, aiming, and firing one. It made the kill so easy it was almost unfair. There was too much power in a gun. </p>
<p>Still, Rey took hold of it, finding the wood cool and unyielding under her hand. As she removed it from the holster, leathery black gave way to smooth, polished steel. It flashed, reflecting the light of the single bulb that swung overhead. </p>
<p>“I know you lost your crossbow when you escaped Kylo Ren. I want you to have this in its place, to help keep us all safe.” She extended a hand, wordlessly asking for it back. </p>
<p>Rey obliged, and the other woman methodically opened up the chamber and wordlessly showed her how to load it. Six rounds, then it would need more. A crossbow only ever held one. </p>
<p>“It’s a Colt Single Action,” she explained softly, unloading it and passing it back to Rey along with the ammunition. “Old world and nearly in mint condition. It’ll serve you well.” </p>
<p>Her dark eyes glittered and Rey blinked at her dumbly, words lost to her beyond a stumbling, “I don’t know what to say.” </p>
<p>“You don’t need to say anything,” Rose interjected. “Just keep my sister alive and you’re even.” </p>
<p>Rey glanced between Rose and her sister’s swollen belly. It looked almost painful. Mara had given the poor woman some sort of salve to apply to it. </p>
<p>“I can keep monsters away, but…” she trailed, mouth drying up. </p>
<p>“Well, we know you can’t protect her from that,” Rose muttered, helping Paige repack the bag. “Go pack up, Poe will be pissed if we aren’t ready by noon.” </p>
<p>“I’m already packed,” despite the pleasant weight of her new weapon on her hip, Rey felt strangely empty. She’d never felt the need to protect another human being before that moment. Yet she was helpless to do anything but look on as Paige hurtled towards an unknown fate. </p>
<p>“Then go shoot off a few practice rounds,” Paige offered kindly. “You’ll want some practice before sundown I’m sure.” </p>
<p>Rey listened to Paige and, after gathering up her satchel from the shack she had been sleeping in, she lined up a row of empty bottles along the railing of a dilapidated fence. They had been easy enough to scavenge along the littered bank of the river. Luke said it was a tributary of the Potomac; a great river to the east. All the garbage that the old world had dumped into it was burped back up and along the veins of the inland. </p>
<p>Rey loaded the gun carefully, and when the barrel clicked back into place she bit the inside of her lip anxiously. There was so much power in a gun. </p>
<p>She raised it into the air, leveled the sight with the first bottle, and winced as she pulled the trigger. The noise was enormous, and the bullet skidded past the bottle and throttled into the earth beyond it in a puff of dust. </p>
<p>Rey clicked her tongue, sured up her stance and her grip and raised the revolver again. Drawing in a deep breath, she leveled the sight and let another round fly. This one hit, shattering the brown tinted glass and sending it flying in a dozen different directions. </p>
<p>She went down the line that way, slowly getting a feel for the new weapon. Eventually, once she had sufficiently obliterated all six bottles, she reloaded the pistol and tucked it neatly back into its holster. Her ears were ringing, but besides that she enjoyed the ease of use this new weapon brought to her. </p>
<p>Just as she was finishing up Poe called out from behind her. <br/>“Rey?” He sounded unsure of himself, the two had been actively avoiding each other since their confrontation. </p>
<p>Rey shouldered her satchel and scowled at him, “Is it time to go?” </p>
<p>“Yeah, come on, you won’t want to miss our strategy session before we go. We need your input on some things.” </p>
<p><i>Them</i> need <i>her</i>? She hadn’t expected him to admit it. </p>
<p>She followed him back into the semi circle of shacks that formed the town. There the others were waiting. Paige was sitting astride a thin, skeletal donkey. It was missing wide patches of fur across its body and down its spindly legs, giving way to sickly purple skin. It looked like it might fall over at any moment. </p>
<p>Despite this grim reminder of their desperate circumstances, Paige greeted Rey with a knowing half-smile, “Satisfying, yeah?” </p>
<p>Rey couldn’t help but smile back. Her hand still buzzed from the reverberation of each shot she had taken, “Yeah.” </p>
<p>“So!” Poe interrupted them, unfolding his map and beckoning Rose, Finn, and Rey to join him in a huddle. He pressed it into Paige’s hands to hold while he explained. Luke loitered nearby on a shabby wooden porch, pretending to sweep while he eavesdropped. </p>
<p>“We’re here,” he pointed to a place beneath a red dot, the text above which Rey could not hope to read. “The ideal route to Flagstaff is a straight shot through the mountains, across the Great Plains and into the desert regions that encompass New Mexico and Arizona.” </p>
<p>“Right,” Finn answered him. “But Kentucky and Tennessee are both—</p>
<p>“Order turf, that’s correct.” Poe’s expression darkened, “We can’t risk the direct route. We’ll have to cut north over the Ohio, there’s a swath of free land through the midwest. And there are Resistance supply depots scattered throughout.” </p>
<p>“Here,” he pointed to one dot. “In New Cinci, here,” this dot was a deep purple. “Saint Louis. And here,” one final red dot. “From there it’s a long haul to Flagstaff. All of that land is contested so risk of encountering an Order patrol is increased.” </p>
<p>Rey’s mouth went dry as she observed the distance they were meant to travel. Before she had been vaguely aware of the existence of the wider body of the old United States, now it was opening up before her all at once. It was overwhelming when just a week before all she had known was Junktown and its bald, irradiated hills. </p>
<p>“And what about when Paige’s time comes?” Rey asked, no accusatory much to her own surprise, but deeply troubled. Fear tinged her words. Where along that infernal trek was a safe place for mother and child?</p>
<p>Poe’s face was an emotionless mask and he answered clear and curt, “My wife and I have already discussed that. It’s nothing for you to worry about… but while I have your attention, Rey, I have a question for you.”</p>
<p>Rey hummed in acknowledgement, eyes turning back to the map, wandering between each dot. Wondering what the colors meant. </p>
<p>“Do you plan to stick with us all the way to Flagstaff? Or are you going to go your own way at some point?”</p>
<p>Rey was taken aback by the question. Not that she hadn’t considered it, running had been on her mind more often than not since her encounter with Kylo Ren. Her new gun hung heavily on her thigh. Though she doubted Paige would fault her if she left, she somehow felt beholden to the older woman. Then again, they had nearly gotten her killed once already, then Poe had compounded that by comparing her worth to that of a <i>horse</i>.</p>
<p>“I don’t know yet,” She replied finally. </p>
<p>Poe frowned, but didn’t complain, “Just give us some warning before you go, okay? One less body changes a lot.” </p>
<p>Rey nodded stiffly and retreated behind the donkey. She laid a hand on its mangey flank and it flicked its tail. </p>
<p>“You can go now, you know,” Paige said softly as the others continued to bicker over a route. Her eyes were dark and kind, pools of warmth that stood starkly against the deadness of the wastes. Poe seized the map from her sharply as he argued with Finn, freeing her hands to rest on her belly. “I can tell you aren’t comfortable with us.” </p>
<p>Rey’s eyes dropped from the woman’s face down to where her hands rested over the swell of her belly, then back up once more. Something like protectiveness welled up in her insides, filling her chest with a drive that she had never felt before. She liked Paige, quite a lot actually. Maybe too much for a married woman with a child on the way, certainly too much for any sensible wastelander to like anything. </p>
<p>“I’m not comfortable with anyone, it’s nothing personal I promise,” Rey explained softly, silently resolving to stay around until Paige had given birth or had died in the process. She owned the woman that much. She wanted to <i>give</i> the woman that much, at least. She was a gem, a light in the dark of the apocalypse. </p>
<p>“Okay,” Paige dropped a hand from her belly, stretching back to brush soft fingertips over Rey’s dirty knuckles. “Just try to keep yourself alive, okay? There’s something special about you.” </p>
<p>“Okay,” Rey stammered, flush pooling in her freckled cheeks. She averted her eyes and dropped her hand. </p>
<p>Just then the strategy circle broke, saving her from further embarrassment. Poe immediately went to Paige’s side, lifting the reins over the donkey’s head so he might lead. The animal stirred, and the gasoline tanks lashed over its rear sloshed with the movement. </p>
<p>	Rey took a quick stock of all their visible supplies as the other’s said their farewells. There were sleeping bags, the makings of torches, jugs of water and canisters of gasoline. Several packs filled up with food. Poe had all of their navigational equipment, but Rey didn’t mind. She had no clue how to use it anyways. </p>
<p>	Everyone, including Paige, was armed with some sort of projectile weapon. And Rey still had her knives tucked neatly into her belt. They were as ready as they would ever be. </p>
<p>	When he finished consulting with Poe on their planned route, Luke turned his icy, cold eyes onto Rey where she waited patiently. </p>
<p>	“What?” </p>
<p>	“I’ve been told you shot Kylo Ren, girl,” Luke approached her with a limping stride. He reminded her of a wounded radstag she had tracked once, still brandishing his antlers proudly, even as his legs gave out under him. </p>
<p>	“I did,” Rey crossed her arms and squared her shoulders defiantly, expecting Luke to call her a liar. </p>
<p>	A weary smile split the grey smear of grizzled face, “That doesn’t surprise me at all, wiley thing like you. If anyone could bring that son-of-a-bitch low…” </p>
<p>	“What are you getting at?” She was growing uncomfortable, still trying to shake the blistering heat of the warlord’s gaze on her skin. She wanted to forget, she had almost forgotten until Luke opened his useless mouth. </p>
<p>	Luke was close enough to touch, now. His breath and body both reeked of fish and decay. He reached out a calloused hand, misshapen with arthritis, and laid it on the tense line of her right shoulder, “He’ll be after you now. I know a thing or two about that kid, and he’ll be after you.” </p>
<p>	The others were watching with interest now. Poe’s expression curious as he took in each word. </p>
<p>	Rey brushed past him dismissively, though her insides felt like ice, “He was hardly a <i>kid</i>, Luke.” </p>
<p>Luke cackled behind her, and she heard him slap at his knee, maybe his gut, “He’ll always be a kid to me!” </p>
<p>Rey ignored him entirely, setting herself up in the rear position behind the donkey. </p>
<p>“That was interesting,” Rose mused. </p>
<p>Rey hummed, watching as Luke’s attention shifted back to Poe. Mara lingered nearby with Anakin, but neither spoke any words. Mara’s emerald eyes locked onto Paige’s belly and remained there the entire time her husband spoke. </p>
<p>“One last thing, Dameron. You watch out for zekes now. They got a tracker in their midst, I’m sure of it. I can hear it sniffing whenever it passes through town.” </p>
<p>“Zekes?” Rey questioned softly. </p>
<p>“That’s the Resistance word for them, zombies, zekes. Junktown folk calm them berserkers, zerks.” Luke answered, and she was surprised by the acuteness of his hearing.  </p>
<p>For once Rey took something the old man had said to heart. Zerks were no joke, and she knew some of them had mutated tracking capabilities. Those ones were called hounds in Junktown. They could even move during the day if they kept out of the sun, though they usually took shelter in their nests and slept. </p>
<p>	Poe’s face had lost some of its color, “I— well… we’ll keep an eye out. We’ve got plenty of gas, so if we need to start a fire, we can.” </p>
<p>	Luke nodded fiercely, “Good, and remember, they come at night.” </p>
<p>	There was a strange foreboding in those words, and Rey shivered instinctively at them. She hoped they wouldn’t have to face anything so terrible as a berserker. But they had many miles ahead of them. Each carrying the potential for endless, untold horror. </p>
<p>	“Yep,” Poe answered swiftly, like he was already trying to forget. Rey couldn’t fault him, that sort of foresight could be more tormenting than helpful. “Okay, we’ve got everything together now. I have the parcel, and I’ll carry your words directly to General Organa, don’t sweat it.”</p>
<p>	“Thank you,” Luke smiled with the mention of the General. “You’re a good sort, Poe. God will see you safely to Flagstaff, I’m sure of it.” </p>
<p><i>God</i>? Were they religious folk? Rey hadn’t seen any obvious signs. No crucifixes or crescent moons worn around their necks. No tattoos. No insistence upon praying over meals. She was always wary of Godly people. Godly people relied heavily on faith, and faith was an excellent way to get oneself slaughtered in the wastes. Faith could not stop a bullet, nor could it pry apart a berserker’s gnashing jaws. </p>
<p>Some color had returned to Poe’s face, and when he answered his voice was heavy and sincere, “Thank you, Lieutenant Skywalker.” </p>
<p>After that a few more somber farewells passed between the party and the locals, then they set off, slow and steady, gilded by the warmth of the midday sun as they vanished over the horizon. </p>
<p>Rey crossed her fingers, shouldered her crossbow, and felt the reassuring weight of the revolver at her hip. And with each aching step, they drew nearer to sundown.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. in wait of dawn</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Paige goes into labor just as the berserkers are closing in.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Content warning for some mild gore in this chapter! Typical zombie-esque stuff</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Night came. And again, and then again. They maintained a steady pace for six days, and when the sky began to tint red with irradiated dusk they would pitch a tent, quiet themselves and pull sticks for watch shifts. </p>
<p>	Rey was getting to know them better as the days trickled by. She struggled with their budding camaraderie because she knew it wouldn’t last. </p>
<p>	Rey, though she had initially taken up the rear, found herself drawn inexplicably towards Paige, even more so than before. The woman was vibrant, her smile wide and her laugh loud, even as she neared her due date; the wasteland reaper knocking at her door. Rey would walk alongside her in comfortable silence, achingly aware of the woman’s looming fate, but also not caring. </p>
<p>	Beyond that likely death, without Paige, the glue which held their merry band together, they would inevitably fall apart. Still, Rey allowed herself those quiet, simple moments of friendship. </p>
<p>	Rose was more plucky than her sister; shorter, with an attitude to boot. Though it was more often directed at Finn than anyone else. The two were playful in the way of rivals. Rey decided she liked them as well. Before Fisher’s End she had been consumed by her suspicion and disdain for them, because they were stupid, like children running blind into the darkness of the fallen world. </p>
<p>	But, with over a week between Rey and her clash with Kylo Ren, she was beginning to let some of her previous distaste melt away. Rey saw their humanity, and a part of her truly wanted to help them. </p>
<p>	Poe, for all his charisma, remained distant to Rey and everyone else. Their relationship was still contentious, but she began to develop a quiet respect for him as she observed his interactions with Paige. In rare moments of sentimentality he would stop to speak quietly to his wife. His hand would cover her belly. He would kiss her hair. </p>
<p>	Rey always looked away. Moments like those were not for her eyes. And she did not fully understand them. </p>
<p>	In many ways Poe Dameron was a fool, but he loved his wife and his unborn child. It made Rey’s heart heavy to think about. </p>
<p>	Though the group dynamics were improving socially, there was a darker matter at hand. Lurking behind them in the green-tinted landscape of the wastes. They were being hunted. </p>
<p>	At night Rey would hear them from her place by the fire. Their feet shuffling, the wet, nasal clicking emanating from the backs of their throats. Occasionally a shadow would flit by as one drew near, but before Rey could raise a torch it would meld back into the pervasive darkness. </p>
<p>	Berserkers. The pack had followed them from Fisher’s End. And each night they circled like hungry wolves. Stalking, but never striking. Their patience showed an intelligence Rey had not realized they possessed. They were waiting for the opportune moment to strike. It was enough to ice Rey’s veins. </p>
<p>	Poe knew. She told him after the first night, and Finn said he had heard them on his watch as well. Their leader’s expression had darkened, and he tried to increase their pace. </p>
<p>	“Berkeley Springs is three days north if we move quickly enough,” he’d said. </p>
<p>	Rey’s lips had thinned into a line, and she’d nodded along, knowing that it was a deviation from their planned path, and there wasn’t a chance in hell Paige would be able to sustain a quicker pace. </p>
<p>	She was full to bursting, swollen and obviously uncomfortable. Fit to burst any day.</p>
<p>	On their sixth day, miles off course, plodding slowly and steadily towards Berkeley Springs, formerly of West Virginia, everything came to a sudden, violent head. </p>
<p>	Paige, for all her circumstances, handled things with the most grace of any of them. When her water broke, wetting the blanket slung over the donkey's back, she was casual in her call to her husband; “Poe, it’s time.” </p>
<p>	Rey vaguely remembered her saying something about being thirty-nine weeks. Like somehow they might be afforded those extra, precious days. They had no such luck. She had been fighting contractions all morning, calling them ‘false’ and smiling weakly as each one passed. But they hadn’t been false. Her water had broken and she was set to deliver whether they were prepared for a baby or not. </p>
<p>	Initially Poe didn’t understand, likely not having considered the possibility that she could deliver early, that the stress would induce her, her body pushed to its limit by radiation and long, endless days of movement. In the waning sunlight Rey was suddenly aware of the gauntness of the woman’s cheekbones, the deep circles beneath her dark eyes. Those precious smiles had hidden the deeper truth of her suffering. Rey wondered if it had begun before they’d even departed Junktown. </p>
<p>	To become pregnant in the wasteland was to sign one’s own death warrant; an adage she had oft heard but never understood until she watched Poe frantically help his wife from the donkey’s back. Rey saw then that there was a thinness to her limbs, her body frail save for the swell of her belly. </p>
<p>	Paige should have stayed out west, should have remained with the Resistance in Flagstaff. All things Rey wanted to shout and scream and pound into the earth and Poe Dameron’s ignorant head with her fists. It would be futile to do so. The past couldn’t be undone, it was better to contend with the present and try to shape the future.  </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rey helped Finn with the tent while Rose attended her sister. Paige was eerily calm. They cut away her ruined pants and Rey looked away, staking the tent into the ground as they began to remove her undergarments. </p>
<p>	Once the tent was set, Finn and Rey remained outside, watching with bloodless faces as the sun began to dip below the line of leafless, black trees. Night would be on them within the hour; full darkness, where berserkers and darker things lurked and listened. Paige would scream, when the contractions came sharp and hard she would howl her agony into the blackness. They would hear her. They would know it was time. </p>
<p>	They would come. </p>
<p>	Shouldering her crossbow, helpless to aide her friend who moaned painfully within the tent, Rey began to move. She was a scavenger; a creature of oblivion unlike these Resistance moles had ever seen. She just needed kindling, a lot of it, enough to last the night. </p>
<p>	“Finn!” She shouted, “Help me gather kindling, make a ring around the tent, give it ten feet’s berth.” </p>
<p>	Finn blinked at her dumbly for a moment, but as Rey burst into action he shook away his shock and confusion and followed suit. </p>
<p>	Fire. They would need fire, and enough wood to sustain them through the dark of night. </p>
<p>	When Poe stuck his head out of the tent he seemed to surmise Rey’s plan. He began to help them, finding a dry, aged log and rolling it towards their growing piles of sticks and dry brush.</p>
<p>	“The gasoline,” Rey explained breathlessly. Cradling a bundle of pointed sticks in her arms. They had maybe an hour until sundown, already Paige was beginning to moan in pain. </p>
<p>	Finn nodded fiercely and began to detach them from the supply bundle at the donkey’s flanks.  </p>
<p>	Their pile of sticks was high enough that Rey was satisfied, so she began to pile up reserves on the ground beside the tent. They would feed their fire for as long as they could. They needed to make it last. </p>
<p>	She motioned to her pile, “Poe, start stacking them over here.” </p>
<p>	He was beginning to tear dead branches from trees since they had picked the surrounded ground clean. </p>
<p>	“Okay.” </p>
<p>	Finn rested the gas cans next to the tinder pile and resumed aiding Poe. Rey diverted herself towards the donkey and their supplies. Mixed in were the makings of torches. They were something Mara had insisted upon. </p>
<p>	They had five long, thick sticks, a small can of old world lighter fluid, and strips of dry, papery fabric. Rey worked on them quickly, knowing they would serve as the last line of defence when the fire inevitably died. It was autumn, the nights were growing longer with each passing of the moon. Many hours lay between their rag-tag band of travellers and the bright succor of dawn. </p>
<p>	When the torches were made Rey leaned them up against the pile of kindling, which was growing ever larger as Poe and Finn collected dead, black bark and boughs from the surrounding elms and maples. </p>
<p>	“We don’t light the fire until they’re in sight,” Rey began, but she was interrupted by a pained moan from within the tent. Poe winced noticeably and looked longingly towards where Rose had drawn up the zipper for privacy. </p>
<p>	Rey felt for him, but also she hoped he understood the role he would play in getting them through the night. </p>
<p>	“They’re going to hear Paige,” Rey continued briskly. “They’re going to smell her blood and they won’t be able to resist. As soon as we see them, Finn, use one of the torches to light the ring. If they try to pass through it they’ll catch and die.” </p>
<p>	“This isn’t enough wood to get us through the night,” Finn observed, quietly. His entire being was subdued, as if he were coming to terms with his inevitable demise. </p>
<p>	“No. it isn’t. So we make <i>a lot</i> of noise. Try to bait them into the flames to thin them out, shoot them if we have to,” Rey was beginning to feel breathless. Each moment she wasted speaking the sun sank lower behind the pointed tops of the trees. “When we run out of kindling we light the torches. I’ve never actually fought a zerk before, but I’ve heard they aren’t easy to kill.” </p>
<p>	“Just keep them away from the tent,” Poe’s voice was thick, and it wavered on the word ‘tent’. As if to punctuate his statement Paige made a noise somewhere between a moan and a scream. </p>
<p>	Rey nodded grimly, and for a moment she considered taking the donkey and fleeing into the night. Her abandoned party would keep the zerks busy while she made a final push for Berkeley Springs. It was her best bet, but she dismissed it quickly. She owed Paige for all the kindness the older woman had shown. She owed Paige for being—</p>
<p>	Rey caught herself and ceased that line of thought. Her eyes were beginning to burn with mournful tears, and she still needed to douse the circle of kindling in gasoline. </p>
<p>	Biting her tongue she lifted up one of the dirty, red canisters and uncapped the spout. Finn was already shifting one of the torches back and forth between his shaking hands. The light was dim now, the dead world around them taking on a violet hue as the stars above began to show their glimmering faces. </p>
<p>	Rey walked along the perimeter of their circle. It stood up from the barren earth like a tiny palisade. The smell of the gasoline made Rey cough as it splashed out and onto the earth. </p>
<p>	“When it goes up,” Rey said to the men without looking at them. Paige cried out again and Rose could be heard encouraging her sister softly. “When it goes up, it’s gonna go <i>up</i>. You’ll want to throw the torch Finn, and stand as far back as you can.” </p>
<p>	“Okay,” Finn’s voice was small and his gaze was far away, watching the horizon, anticipating some horrible fate.  </p>
<p>	Poe procured a lighter from his bag and clutched it in his hand. The muscles in his square jaw twitched as he ground his teeth. </p>
<p>	“We aren’t going to die here tonight,” Rey tried to sound self-assured. In truth, she couldn’t speak for them, but she knew this wasn’t her last stand. She could always flee, climb up into a tree and unload bullets into the zerks until they fried in the morning sunlight. “I survived a meeting with Kylo-fucking-Ren, I don’t die here.” </p>
<p>	And Rey knew that no fire could scald her like his gaze had. She had nothing in the world to fear. </p>
<p>	The sun was hidden now, the last remnants of its light barely clung to the dusky horizon. The forest around them was dead and silent, so empty that Paige’s labored breathing echoed off of each stone and tree trunk. When she cried out a flock of bony, black birds scattered in the distance. </p>
<p>	Rey chewed her lip anxiously, cradling the familiar weight of her crossbow in her arms. She would save the gun for when the fire died and the zombies overwhelmed them. She swallowed hard, remembering the misshapen creature she had seen through the wooden planks of the shack wall. It had been shrouded in darkness, then. Only its shadowy silhouette giving away the state of its radiation mangled body. Now they would see their enemy in the light. </p>
<p>	Though she didn’t want to, Rey could not help but remember that they had been people once, too. It would only make the horror of their deformation all the worse. </p>
<p>	For a few moments of icy stillness, all the sound in the world was Paige. Rey winced with each whimper and bloody cry, and wondered why a woman with access to all the Resistance’s resources wouldn’t have simply terminated. She wondered why childbirth was a painful thing at all, when babies were necessary for the species to perpetuate. Once, when zealots had been making their occasional push through Junktown, she had heard that their pain was punishment for their crimes against God. Rey didn’t buy it. Why punish the women when you need them to make men?</p>
<p>	Rey’s shoulders began to relax a bit, as she continued to think, and everything within her line of sight remained deathly still. Paige was certainly loud enough for their pursuers to hear. Perhaps, Rey thought hopefully, they had finally moved on in search of an easier kill. </p>
<p>	That fickle hope was quickly shattered as a low, wet clicking noise echoed back in response to one of Paige’s noises. Rose was speaking more frantically now. Rey raised her crossbow, eyes combing the darkness desperately for the source of the sound. </p>
<p>	“Not until we see them, Finn,” Rey reminded him, voice low and full of danger. Her companions had stationed themselves on different sides of the tent. Rey faced north, and she knew somewhere through the darkness a town was waiting for them, come morning. Poe had promised rejuvenating hot springs, something Rey had never experienced before. She wanted to see them, to feel their waters. She <i>would</i> see them. This was not her place to die. </p>
<p>	A deep, gargling trill emanated from the darkness, followed by several responding clicks. <br/>Rey could hear their footsteps as they shuffled through the dirt. The only light was that of Finn’s flickering torch, and the steady silver shine of the moon looking down on them. Her white face was wide and open, and Rey took it as a promise of opportunity.</p>
<p>	In the darkness something jerked, and geckered, feet slapping the bare earth as it began to dart in a hasty circle around them. Another joined, and then another, and another, and soon enough the forest around them was alive and quivering with their stampeding feet. Their gnarled voices echoed up into the air until they mingled into sordid, primal laughter. </p>
<p>	A chill shot up Rey’s spine, making her shiver. In that same moment she saw the shine of two wide, greenish eyes flash at her from the treeline. </p>
<p>	“Now!” She shouted, stepping back from the circle of kindling. </p>
<p>	Finn threw the torch in a flaming arch, and when it touched the gasoline soaked circle it roared up in hissing flames. The light was a relief, but also it revealed a terror to Rey, the eyes she had seen were already past the fire line. They were bulging with purple veins from a face of rotten, sagging green skin. A hood of melted flesh was gathered around its naked shoulders and neck like the shell of a demented turtle, and the inside of its gaping mouth <i>glowed</i> with radiation. </p>
<p>	It’s long, bony fingers were on her, and it brought her to the ground under its sheer weight. It howled and gnashed its rotten teeth, glowing tongue swiping for the flesh of her throat as she screamed and thrust her crossbow into its chest. </p>
<p>	No, no, no, she wasn’t supposed to die here. </p>
<p>	The zerk thrashed and raked her arms with its claw like nails, tearing her open and spilling hot, fragrant blood that only further riled it. </p>
<p>	“Rey!” She heard Finn shout through her mad struggle. </p>
<p>	The zerk stank of death, so foul it brought tears to Rey’s eyes as she kneed it in its torso, doing everything she could to keep its teeth away from her throat. </p>
<p>	Then it hissed and was jerked off of her as Finn planted a firm boot in its side. It scrambled on the ground, hiccuping and chattering madly as Rey clambered to her feet, shaken and nauseous from the odor. </p>
<p>	Rey was ready to level her crossbow with the patchy dome of its skull, thin strands of hair were festooned into the skin that was visible outside of its fleshy hood. But Finn was ahead of her, he raised his shotgun and blew the berserker’s hideous face to bits. </p>
<p>	It screamed as it died, gurgling on a fountain of black blood and ichor. The scream struck Rey at her core, it’s humanness blindsiding her. It was a swan song for who that beast had once been, and Rey was sure from the pitch of it that it had been a woman. </p>
<p>	Rey let out a rasping breath, suddenly lightheaded as she backed away from the corpse. The wall of licking flames was doing its job and keeping the rest of the pack at bay, they clicked and snarled and howled into the night, their inhuman faces illuminated eerily by the fire. </p>
<p>	“Are you okay?” Poe asked, glancing at her over his shoulder. </p>
<p>	Rey swallowed hard and nodded, doing everything within her power to keep from vomiting. She could tell by the troubled expression on Finn’s face that he, too, had heard the humanness in that scream. </p>
<p>	Rey raised her fire tinted gaze back to the horde that had surrounded them. There were too many to count, and they moved too quickly for Rey to distinguish one from another. Gulping back all of her empathy and trepidation, she raised her crossbow and fired one of her remaining bolts into the crowd of them. </p>
<p>	One of them staggered backwards, it was missing its nose and lips, and half of its right arm. It’s ribs pressed the skin of its torso taut and its purplish belly was distended and leaking ichor around the shaft of Rey’s well placed bolt. </p>
<p>	It croaked, stumbling jerkily backwards. Then it stopped, leaned forward with unblinking, flash blind eyes. They were as white at the moon above, and suddenly Rey was less certain of what that whiteness meant. Perhaps the old world was jealous because it’s people were monsters and Rey wasn’t. </p>
<p>	The maimed berserker lunged forward, howling as it barreled into the fire, arms reaching out for Rey. It went up like a match, erupting in flame and collapsing into the circle of kindling, contributing its body to the blaze that would destroy its brethren. It writhed and coughed, and finally emitted that same, eerie death knell. </p>
<p>	This time Poe heard it, too, but the shock rolled off of him like rain. He wiped the sweat from his brow, raised his own gun, and began to unload into the chaos. </p>
<p>	Rey and Finn joined him, gaining confidence as they lured each zombie into the blaze. Soon enough the death cries were nothing but old world static in their ears. Soon enough the bodies were piling up, feeding the flames. </p>
<p>	Rey was sweating and panting with the heat of their fire, the inside of the tent must have been sweltering, but she knew Rose had taken water in with her. She had been so preoccupied that she had drowned out Paige’s cries of pain. But now that the scavenger took a moment to breath, it all came rushing back. </p>
<p>	Paige’s determined cries were coming in regular intervals now, and when Rey looked up she found that the moon had made progress on its arc across the sky. More time had passed than she’d realized. </p>
<p>	Her eyes stung with sweat, and her body ached with exhaustion, behind her she heard Rose shout, “You’re doing so good! Keep breathing!” </p>
<p>	At some point in the chaos, Rey had swapped to her Colt. The barrel glinted orange, reflecting the flames which soared ever higher. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew the gunfire might draw other, worse creatures out of the blackness, but they had no choice. It was shoot or be overrun. Swelter in the heat or find eternal rest in the belly of the old world beasts. </p>
<p>	The smoke made her eyes burn and drew a ragged cough from her mouth. The bodies were stacked high, Rey estimated they’d killed close to twenty. Less than half remained, circling and clicking and chattering their black teeth. </p>
<p>	“Why aren’t they running?” Finn asked. His hands were on his knees as he tried to catch his breath, “We’ve killed so many, why aren’t they afraid?” </p>
<p>	“They don’t know to be afraid,” Rey said without much thought. “They just <i>do</i>. They don’t think.” </p>
<p>	Just then Poe managed to put a bullet clean into the side of one of their misshapen heads. It dropped with all the weight and grace of a bag of sand, it’s death cry was a whimper barely heard over the fire. </p>
<p>	“Headshots kill them instantly,” Poe confirmed what they had all just witnessed. “Not that it’s easy with the way they move.” </p>
<p>	Rey swiped at her eyes in a poor attempt to clear them of smoke and sweat. Then she lifted arm, took aim, and it began once more. </p>
<p>	No greater evils emerged from the darkness as they thinned out the pack until only a few, fleet footed individuals remained. One of them was ghostly white, and had only gaping, black holes where its eyes should have been. Rey killed that one, and when it went up in flames it’s dying cries were anguished and masculine. </p>
<p>	Rey pretended that the smoke rising up from their razed corpses was the essence of their souls finally escaping to freedom. She pretended she was doing them a favor. She pretended that old world things had no want of the new, and that they must be grateful. She pretended these things because she had never before taken a human life. </p>
<p>	This night was not the night to begin, so she rationalized. </p>
<p>	Eventually, when the charred remains cooked and smoldered around them like a great, foul-smelly, flesh wall, and only two living zerks remained, the sun began to poke its golden face over the treetops, and the remainders retreated back into the shadows. </p>
<p>	As warm, golden light began to fill up the sky, Rey buckled to her knees and wretched into the ashy soil. Her fingers splayed and dug into the shifting substance, and poking into her palms she felt shards of splintered bone. </p>
<p>	They had never touched the other torches, but they had used all of their gasoline to keep the flames high. </p>
<p>	The fire was beginning to die when Rose poked her head out of the tent. Somewhere, in a place that sounded very far away, someone was crying. </p>
<p>	“Poe.” Rose said, her voice betraying nothing of what waited for him inside. </p>
<p>	Rey looked up, mouth bitter with bile and eyes prickling with tears. </p>
<p>	She beheld the splendor of dawn.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This one was SOOO fun to write, so please let me know if you enjoyed it or found it meaningful in any way. I'm kinda serious about the themes in this fic lmao. </p>
<p>Kylo will be making his second appearance in 1 - 2 chapters :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. loss and longing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Things come to a head.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <b>Content Warning: Character Death (not Ben or Rey) see the end notes for details.</b>
</p>
<p>Kylo will show up again sometime in the next 2 chapters, I promise!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>At dawn Paige was alive. Inside the tent smelled of blood and sweat, and the air was sweltering from the woman’s exertions and the fire that had raged around them. </p>
<p>	She was alive, but her face was pale and her lips were cracked. There were deep, dark circles beneath her eyes which her weak smile would not touch. </p>
<p>	Rey kept her distance, because she knew death when she saw it coming, because she was afraid to face the terrible reality of their situation. Yes, Poe claimed the hot waters of Berkeley Springs had healing properties. But how were they supposed to get her to them if Paige could not stand on her own?</p>
<p>	Rose held the baby close, expression grim as he cried. A boy. Paige called him Ethan, and Poe’s expression upon meeting his newborn was a twist of pure joy and immense grief. </p>
<p>	For Rey the emotions were all too potent and raw, so she fled the tent to loiter around the donkey. They’d used up all of their gasoline in the night, they would need to trade for more at the springs. The air grew colder with each passing night. </p>
<p>	Eventually Finn joined her, plopping down onto the ashy ground beside her. The donkey nosed through the debris, hunting for shoots of buried grass. </p>
<p>	“I don’t…” Finn began, but he struggled to give voice to the terrible thoughts that filled up his head. “This doesn’t look good, Rey.” </p>
<p>	Rey held her knees to her chest, chin and nose obscured behind the filthy fabric of her pants. Her gaze was distant, set on the treeline. She couldn’t say what it was she was waiting for, but something beyond the dead, black bark beckoned to her. </p>
<p>	“No,” she agreed softly. “It really doesn’t.” </p>
<p>	They sat in silence while baby Ethan cried and Rose and Poe bickered in sharp, hushed tones. </p>
<p>	The baby seemed healthy, at least on the outside. He had no obvious tumors, no malformations of his fingers, toes or skin. He had two eyes, new and blue, and a healthy set of lungs if the screaming was any indication. Rey kept her mouth shut, but knew there was still a chance something could be wrong with his insides, then it all would be for nothing. </p>
<p>	They spent a second night at that cursed camp, though this time no terrors emerged to harass them in the dark. Rey wondered if the lingering scent of smoke and razed flesh was enough to keep the radwolves at bay, no doubt they would hear the newborn crying. </p>
<p>	She slept away from the tent, away from the baby and Paige and the grieving Poe. Now that the danger to her own person had seemingly passed her mind wandered continuously to Kylo Ren and his band of Order warriors. Rey laid on her back, watching the stars above glimmer and twinkle, and wondered why they hadn’t encountered him again? </p>
<p>	Rey had lodged a crossbow bolt into his side, surely that was an offense that could not go unanswered. She had heard tales of his cruelty since she was a child. He was a zealot of First Order dogma, a cruel hunter who crushed any who defied him beneath the heel of his boot. And Rey had <i>shot</i> him clean. </p>
<p>	She rolled onto her side, shivering against the night. Shutting her eyes she forced herself to sleep, and once she was under she dreamed of Kylo Ren. The woods were like a labyrinth, the trees forming thick, bark covered walls around her as she ran. Always she could hear him behind her, the pounding of his horse’s hooves echoing along the tree trunks. </p>
<p>	When Rey opened her eyes again it was still night, but now she was coated in a cold sweat. Her heart thundered in her chest and her eyes watered until the fright passed. Then she sat up, gathered her jacket in close around her, and resigned herself to a night of insomnia. </p>
<p>	The next day they finally left their camp, venturing out into the wastes once more. Straying farther away from their intended path with each step, Rey wondered if the hot springs really possessed healing properties, or if it was just a hopeful lie Poe was telling himself. It was obvious that he loved his wife, that he didn’t want her to die. </p>
<p>	But Paige was in a bad way. Atop the donkey she swayed at the slightest brush of wind. Her skin was pale and clammy, her eyes glassy and far away. The only expression she would make was one of pain when the animal who bore her misstepped. Rey would then wince in turn, wondering how badly the baby had torn her up on his way out. </p>
<p>	Ethan was doing as well as an infant could be expected to in the wastes. He cried incessantly, and they kept having to stop so Paige could nurse him or Poe could wrap another old rag around his ass to catch his shit. </p>
<p>	Rey found she mostly resented the child, though it wasn’t his fault that he was born to ill-prepared parents. So she kept her head down and walked along at a distance. She didn’t bother with goodbyes, it would only serve to aggravate Poe, and Paige was mostly gone anyway. </p>
<p>	It seemed like she might make it another day. The sky began to tint a dusty orange, and the air began to chill. Rose carried the baby and Poe hung close to his wife’s side as she swayed atop her mount. Finn and Rey had been sharing wary looks all day long from their places at the donkey’s flanks. Now there was some small hope in Finn’s dark eyes. He smiled at Rey weakly as if to say; <i>if she survives these first few days, who's to say she won’t survive all together?</i></p>
<p>	Rey’s answering look was grim. Hope was dangerous in the wastes, it was better to damn your own hope than fall flat on a false one. </p>
<p>	They were looking for a decent camping spot when it happened, Paige fell from the donkey’s back. The wind blew with more gusto than before, and she simply toppled over, limbs akimbo in the dirt. The fleshy <i>thump</i> Of her body striking the earth echoed off of the trees and sickened Rey’s stomach. </p>
<p>	She maintained her distance, despite the fondness she had held for the woman, she simply couldn’t look. </p>
<p>	“No,” Poe whispered, then continued with increasing volume as he dropped to his knees and scooped her feeble form up in his arms. “No, no, no, no, no!” </p>
<p>	Rose held the baby tighter, as if she could hide him away from this world where his mother was withering away, dead. There were tears in her eyes, and Finn rushed to comfort her. He laid his hands on her shoulders but his expression was lost, helpless. </p>
<p>	“Poe we have to push through the night,” Rose insisted through her tears. “We have to get her to the springs, they can help us there.” </p>
<p>	Poe didn’t answer her, he was feeling frantically at Paige’s throat. When he did not find what he was looking for he laid her on the ground and tried breathing into her, working her chest with his hands in a display unlike anything Rey had ever seen. </p>
<p>	Dead was dead. There was no coming back from it. To even try seemed unnatural. Dead things were meant to stay that way. </p>
<p>	She looked away, setting her eyes on the sunset. As the sun sank lower beneath the horizon the colors which collaged the sky grew more vibrant and beautiful. It was a strange way for their senseless world to punctuate Paige’s death. As Poe desperately tried to revive her corpse, Rose began to weep, and so did the baby. </p>
<p>	Rey only stared at the sunset, hardly even noticing the few tears that gathered and escaped from her own eyes. She’d never felt further divorced from those people than in that moment, as they comforted one another and resigned each other to Paige’s ultimate fate, Rey stood alone, aloof, apart from them. </p>
<p>	She stood until the sun had set and the moon was beginning its trek across the sky. She waited until silence fell over their grim little camp. She waited until the baby was snoring softly and Rose had whimpered herself to sleep in Finn’s arms. She waited until Poe stepped away, no longer able to manage being in the presence of his wife’s body. </p>
<p>	It was then, in a moment of rare, solemn quiet that she crept over to where Paige was. They had wrapped her up in a blanket, and Rey did not try to disturb it. She stared at the human shaped lump for a few moments, remembering Paige’s smile. How her eyes would light up and Rey’s chest would feel suddenly full in response. Rey felt the weight of her Colt at her hip, heavier than ever before. </p>
<p>	Rey decided she had felt something like love for the other woman. What sort? She couldn’t say, because she had never really felt love before. Nor had she ever known the hurt of losing someone. </p>
<p>	Now she did. </p>
<p>	The tears came steadily then, as she turned and walked away from the body. Her feet moved of their own accord, carrying her away from the camp, and Paige, and those damned Resistance peons and their idealistic, moralistic bullshit. She walked north, following along the path of a wending stream. Perhaps it would take her to the springs, perhaps it would take her straight to Flagstaff, straight to the delusional Resistance leadership who thought that there was any way to bring order to the wastes. </p>
<p>	Eventually she came to rest at the foot of an ancient, twisted elm. It’s bare branches forked up into the sky like the tongues of serpents hungry for prey. There she sank down to rest. Her legs aching from exertion. She had left everything behind that wasn’t on her person and in her satchel, which wasn’t much besides food and water. </p>
<p>	She was uncertain if she were moving in the right direction, or if she had overshot and moved Berkeley Springs in her haste. </p>
<p>	“Shit,” she whispered, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Shit, shit, shit.” </p>
<p>	How had it come to this? How was she lost and alone in the wasteland after so many years of caution and preparedness? </p>
<p>	The sun said it was noon, but the air was bitter with the coming winter. </p>
<p>	Rey decided to shut her eyes, just for a moment. There couldn’t be any harm in it, and she needed to rest so she could regain her bearings and carry on. She wouldn’t die here, not now. Not after everything she had endured to reach this point. </p>
<p>	So Rey shut her eyes and let her head loll to the side. Sleep came easy, for once, and her breathing evened out. </p>
<p>	It was hours later, there, against the trunk of that elm tree when they found her.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Content Warning: Paige dies. It isn't graphic but it happens. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you thought of this update. I will not be taking critiques of my choice to kill off Paige, though. That has been planned from the beginning and lends itself to the main theme of this fic.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Eden</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Rey is captured, then saved.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <b>Content Warning: Multiple mentions of sexual assault.</b>
</p>
<p>~enjoy</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They were men. Their hands were wrapped in black fabric and two of them had facial tattoos, geometric patterns that boxed in like prison bars around their lips, which were sewn shut with some sort of thick twine. The third was clean faced and he smiled down at her unhindered.</p>
<p>	Rey didn’t scream. She struggled, kicking and biting at them as they manhandled her onto her knees. She was strong, and perhaps she could have taken one of them alone, but they were men, larger than her, from the way their leather vests cut off she could see the power in their coiling muscles. </p>
<p>After a moment of wriggling and spitting, one of them kicked her hard behind the knee, then caught the back of her neck in his hand as she crumpled to the ground. </p>
<p>	Rey panted, wide eyes holding firm on the earth, knowing he could end her life with just a twist of his thick wrist. </p>
<p>	“Very good,” the clean faced man spoke. His voice was nasal and his shoes were filthy. “This will please the master immensely, another woman for him.”</p>
<p>	Rey exhaled shakily. Taking the tattoos and sewn lips into consideration along with the term ‘master’ she figured she had accidentally stumbled into some sort of post-nuclear cult. Or maybe they were pre-nuclear and had survived beyond the bombs? She couldn’t say, the old world was a thing of legend to her. </p>
<p>	“What do you want from me?” Rey managed to speak with some steadiness, she raised her head as much as the hand on her neck would allow, taking in the slender form of her captor. He had black hair and skin pale as snow, he wore a beard that covered the whole of his lower face in bristly whiskers. </p>
<p>	His smile was bone-chilling, eyes hard and unyielding as he pinioned her to the cold ground with his gaze, “What women are good for in these times. And it isn’t I who wants you.” </p>
<p>	“Then who?” The hand on the back of her neck tightened its grip, and the man holding her grunted through sealed lips. </p>
<p>	“You’ll see,” the man answered her, and he motioned for the other two to step back. Rey rolled her shoulders in relief as the hand slipped away from her. </p>
<p>	It wasn’t much of a chance to run, but it was the best she was going to get. The bearded man reached out to cup her chin in his hand, as if observing the face of a prized animal. He even pushed up her lip to assess her teeth.  Rey waited until the perfect moment, just as he was pulling his hand away, to lunge forward and crush his fingers between her teeth. </p>
<p>	The taste of blood filled up her mouth as the man yowled and she took off as quickly as she could manage, which wasn’t very fast considering how exhausted she was. </p>
<p>	“Get that bitch!” The man shouted, and the two others, who had been frozen in confusion burst into action. </p>
<p>	There was no way she could outrun them, Rey knew that, she could hear them gaining on her with each powerful stride of their legs. So she went the only direction that offered any promise, <i>up</i>. She was smaller than the brutes, lighter, and so she could climb higher up into the boughs of the evergreen she had chosen than they could hope to reach. They still tried, groping around amidst the lower branches, reaching for her fruitlessly and grunted through their gory, bloody lips. </p>
<p>	From her hip Rey produced her revolver, looking down the sight at their bald, tattooed heads. </p>
<p>	“Oh no you don’t,” the other man’s voice rang out from behind her, and then it was accompanied by a loud, sharp sound. </p>
<p>	The breath was knocked from Rey’s lungs, and she pitched forward, tumbling out of the tree as she tried to discern exactly what had happened to her. </p>
<p>	There was pain now, sharp and shooting from her side, radiating all the way up to her shoulder and down her arm to pulse in her fingertips. Laying face down on the substrate she groped jerkily for her side, gasping as her finger probed a wound. </p>
<p>	She had been shot. </p>
<p>	The textured sole of a boot pressed down on her back, the heel of it brushing her fresh wound just enough to make her scream and grope at the pine needles under her hands. </p>
<p>	“Crafty little bitch,” the man spat into her hair. “The Master will enjoy breaking you. Maybe he’ll even give me a turn.” </p>
<p>	He laughed, the sound echoing sordidly between the trees. </p>
<p>	“Boys, get her up,” he ordered the two with their mouths sewn shut. “And no touching the goods, you’ll get your chance with her eventually.” </p>
<p>	Rey’s head swam as she processed the meaning behind his words. She was afraid, very afraid, but also the pain was beginning to numb her. When the two tattooed men hoisted her into the air, her body suspended between theirs, arms held in place over their shoulders, her head rolled and she wheezed. </p>
<p>	The man who could speak squeezed her rear in his hand, pulling at the skin beneath the wound. Rey’s vision began to darken with splotches burning away like paper. </p>
<p>	“Oh hell yes,” he said, voice low and dark. The words sounded as if they were coming through water. “The Master is going to reward me <i>handsomely</i> for this one.” </p>
<p>	Rey was gone. </p>
<p>‘</p>
<p>	When she opened her eyes again her whole body hurt, but her side in particular. There was a foul taste in her mouth, and when she smacked her lips she found them so cracked they were bloody. Her wrists were bound behind her back, and she was leaning up against a cold cinderblock wall, boxed into a tiny cell by iron bars. She naked save for her underwear and breast band and the sterile white gauze that was wound neatly around her middle, concealing her wound.</p>
<p>	She blinked the sleep from her eyes and tried to shake the pounding from her head, but it was no use. </p>
<p>	“H—</p>
<p>	She tried to speak, but only a pitiful noise escaped from her throat. The man on guard still heard her. He was one of the peons with the facial tattoos and the sewn lips. </p>
<p>	He approached the cell slowly and ran the tip of his nightstick along the bars teasingly. </p>
<p>	“Water,” Rey begged, voice scratchy and painful. “Please.” </p>
<p>	He blinked down at her with cold blue eyes and grunted, clipping his nightstick back onto his belt. He walked to the other side of the room and sat down behind a rotting wooden desk which was still home to a useless landline. He rang a bell then waited. </p>
<p>	It only took a few moments for several more men to manifest in the doorway. Three of them were tattooed peons, bulky and frightening with all of their heavy, black tattoos. The other two were clean faced and seemed to have full function of their mouths. One of them was the man who had shot her. The other was taller and leaner, with icy blue eyes and blonde hair. He sported a beard as well, but his was longer and braided neatly at the end. </p>
<p>	“Took you long enough to wake up,” the blonde said, coming to a halt in front of her cell. “Four days you were under, the women weren’t sure if you were going to survive.” </p>
<p>	She did feel feverish, her skin clammy and her hair greasy. She blinked at him dumbly, unsure of what to say. </p>
<p>	“I am very sorry about the circumstances that have brought you to me,” he continued, smiling down at her wide and wicked. “I would like to make a gesture of hospitality towards you, as an apology and a welcoming gift.” </p>
<p>	Quick and violent, before the other man had a chance to catch up with what was going on, one of the peons kicked him hard behind his knees, bringing him to the floor. Another placed wide, firm hands over the man’s shoulders as he squawked and struggled. The blonde produced a pistol from his back pocket and pressed the barrel of it to the back of the man’s head with deceptive gentleness. </p>
<p>	“This is Connor!” The blonde exclaimed enthusiastically, his pupils were pinpricks in the centers of his wild eyes, “Connor is my little brother! He so loyally brought you to be among my flock. But Connor was not so obedient as he could have been, were you, little brother?”</p>
<p>	Conner was shaking now, lips quivering and eyes full of desperate tears. </p>
<p>	“I brought her to you!” He begged, “I brought you a woman just like you asked, just like you always ask!” </p>
<p>	The blonde clicked his tongue as if he were weighing his brother’s words, “You did bring me a woman, yes, but you damaged her in the process. She is beyond my use right now because <i>you</i> were unable to manage a hundred-some pound girl. You know better than to bring me damaged goods, you <i>never</i> bring me a bitch that I can’t use.” </p>
<p>	“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please I j—</p>
<p>	The blonde, who Rey now assumed to be the illusive <i>Master</i> pulled the trigger at that moment. Bringing Connor down in a spray of blood and brains that splattered Rey’s horrified face as she cowered in her cell.</p>
<p>	“There we go,” he blew uselessly at the end of his pistol before tucking it back into his pocket. The peons let the body drop, stepping away, unfazed by the show of excessive violence. </p>
<p>	“A bullet for a bullet,” the Master declared exuberantly. His glacial eyes trailed over the body and up to Rey where she shivered and cowered, face speckled with blood. “Now we are even, and you know the extent of my hospitality.” </p>
<p>	Petrified, Rey managed a whispered thank you, hoping it would be enough to mollify him. </p>
<p>	The Master beamed, “You will like it here, woman. So long as you know your place, the others will teach you, and once you’re healed enough you’ll become a functioning member of my flock.” </p>
<p>	Rey nodded weakly, cold despite her fever. She couldn’t look away from the shattered skull of Connor, blood fanning out in tiny river-like tendrils over the filthy tile floor. </p>
<p>	“This place used to be a police station and jail,” The Master explained. “Now it is the place from which I am rebuilding our world.” </p>
<p>	“Where are we?” Rey mustered the courage to ask. </p>
<p>	“Eden, Nirvana, Valhalla,” he mused. “Paradise, that’s all that really matters.” </p>
<p>	“These minions of mine are Adams, and I am God, or Odin, or Zues, or Ra. And you are like the virgin Mary! My Isis, my Hera. One of many. It is from this place that the world will be remade!” He enthused, raising his hands joyously. He was completely and utterly insane, and Rey was terrified.</p>
<p>	Rey’s eyes dropped to her knees. The steady current of blood could not pass over the chipping paint of her cell’s threshold. She had to pee. Everything hurt. She didn’t understand how things had fallen to pieces so quickly. </p>
<p>	“These are my loyal minions, my many voiceless Adams,” he motioned to the tattooed men. “They are forbidden from speaking because they are like chattel to me, to my superior mind. It is my genome that will carry humanity into a new era. You will be honored with assisting me in that venture.” </p>
<p>	Rey blinked at him numbly. It would be rape then, that was her fate. The cell was locked. There were no windows or vents within through which she could escape. But how could she possibly resign herself to such a fate? How could she not fight?</p>
<p>	Gaining courage and venom she asked stiffly, “And when I am no longer of use to you?” </p>
<p>	“I must maintain the loyalty of my minions somehow, no?” </p>
<p>	Rey’s stomach churned. Her eyes fell back to Conner and she wished that it was her there in his place, brains splattered on the far wall. </p>
<p>	“You make me <i>sick</i>,” she hissed softly, refusing to meet the Master’s eyes. </p>
<p>	His eyebrows shot up near to his hairline, and his lip twitched almost imperceptibly downward, “You can be a stubborn bitch if you like, I’ll fuck that out of you eventually. And if not me, then my minions. I have enough of them to <i>ruin</i> a tiny thing like you.”</p>
<p>	Rey opened her mouth to snipe back, but she was cut off by a loud, rattling <i>bang</i> from beyond the jail’s cinder block walls. </p>
<p>	“Fuck!” The Master shouted, all of his previous enthusiasm melting away into a hard, crazed expression. His teeth were set in a grimace, eyes flashing dangerously, “They’re back for another round, boys! Shoot ‘em fucking dead!” </p>
<p>	They were gone, back through the doorway from which they had emerged. Ray was left alone with Connor’s body and the original guard who had not moved from his seat at the ancient sheriff’s desk. </p>
<p>	There were several more successive bangs, followed by distant gunfire and shouting. Some sort of a raid? Another sex crazed cult come to steal the Master’s women? </p>
<p>	Rey exhaled heavily through her nose and shut her eyes, leaning her head against the cool cinder block of the wall. <i>I’m going to die here</i>, she thought, and then; <i>no, I can’t</i>. Rey was a scavenger, a survivor. She had survived a childhood of heavy labor under the cracking whip of Unkar Plutt, she could manage her way through a jailhouse full of horny, deranged men. She would survive because that was what she was born to do, until she could do it no longer. </p>
<p>	“This isn’t my time,” she said softly to herself. “This isn’t my place.” And she staggered to her feet, wincing as the wound on her side pulled. The gauze began to tinge red as she reopened it. </p>
<p>	“Hey!” She called to the lingering guard. He had moved to the door, and was peering up a short flight of stairs towards the entrance with concern written across his tattooed brow. The gunfire was much closer now. </p>
<p>	He looked back at her. </p>
<p>	“Can you please remove these cuffs,” she pleaded, turning to show where her hands were locked behind her back. “They’re hurting my wrists. The Master doesn’t want me damaged any further.” </p>
<p>	He blinked at her, at her cuffed hands, then slowly approached the cell. When he came to a stop in front of her Rey smiled and tried her best to appear demure. It was a difficult effect to achieve considering she was filthy, bleeding, and splattered with brain matter. </p>
<p>	He smiled back, as much as his stitches would allow. The line of wounds in his lips pulled and weeped greenish puss, which he wiped away with the back of his hand. </p>
<p>	Rey smiled wider, and gave an encouraging laugh, hoping it was enough. </p>
<p>	It wasn’t. With a sudden, sharp movement he reached between the bars and seized her by her throat, lifting her up so her bare toes only brushed at the floor as she kicked weakly. </p>
<p>	He grunted at her, eyes narrowing and tattoos warping menacingly. </p>
<p>	Rey choked. <i>I’m sorry</i>, she tried to say, but the words were lodged in her constricted throat. <i>Please, please, please, I’m sorry.</i></p>
<p>	Her vision began to spot and her face felt hot, and for a moment Rey thought that perhaps her time really had come. This man was going to choke the life out of her in the holding cell of rape dungeon. She supposed it was better than the alternative. </p>
<p>	Her eyes had just begun to flutter shut when the man jerked sharply in front of her. Initially his grip tightened further, but then his fingers began to relax one by one. Rey’s feet smacked onto the floor and she gasped, sucking down great swallows of putrid air. </p>
<p>	Her eyes followed from the peon’s shocked expression down to his chest, where the tip of a massive blade had emerged bloody from his sternum. </p>
<p>	Rey stared, dumbstruck and whiplashed from the day’s proceedings. </p>
<p>	The blade retreated smoothly with a wet sound that made Rey shiver, and the peon fell to his knees, blood pooling in his gaping mouth. </p>
<p>	Behind him stood a dangerous, dark, imposing figure. Six-odd feet of solid black regalia and armor, heavy greatsword dripping inky blood from its ebony blade. Rey could hear his breathing amplified by his mask hewn from scrap. It was quick and angry, and he approached the dying man with thundering footsteps, kicked him to the floor, then crushed his bald head beneath a large black boot as if it were nothing more than a tattooed egg.</p>
<p>	“<i>Pathetic</i>,” he snarled, and the voice of Kylo Ren was one which Rey had not forgotten. She shivered, and made a small noise of terror. His mask moved, gaze shifting to her. </p>
<p>	“I’ve been looking for you.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Kudos and comments make my world go 'round &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. in a name</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Rey is formally introduced to Kylo Ren.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Double update this week !</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first thing the hulking shadow who was Kylo Ren did was raise his massive longsword over his head and bring it down brutally onto the locking mechanism of Rey’s cell. The metal squealed in complaint, sparking with the friction and force of the blow. Then the barred door simply creaked open with a soft whine. </p>
<p>	Rey didn’t move. She remained very still, as if he were a predator whose notice she might still escape. </p>
<p>	“Come,” he commanded in that deep, foreboding voice. </p>
<p>	Rey swallowed, her dry throat shifting in the shadows. She couldn’t follow him even if she wanted to, her wound ached with each shallow breath. Her knees were like liquid under her, barely holding her weight. </p>
<p>	His voice deepened impossibly further, and he raised a black clad hand to crook a finger at her, “I said <i>come</i>, girl.” </p>
<p>	There was danger behind his words and Rey, already having decided against death that day, took a few staggered steps forward, lurching more than walking out of the cell. Her wound screamed in complaint, sending pulses of white hot pain up her side and down her leg. She tumbled forward with a throaty moan of agony, fully expecting to faceplant into the weathered tile.</p>
<p>	A strong, broad hand caught her by her shoulder, and a second planted itself supportively against her chest. Kylo Ren lifted her, moving one hand beneath her arm, the other holding the small of her back. Rey was pressed against him, chest to chest with the scourge of the wastes. </p>
<p>She couldn’t see his eyes, but somehow he managed to hold her gaze through the narrow slit of his mask. His breath was steady and even, and Rey found herself clinging to him in a desperate bid to stay upright. </p>
<p>“How badly did they wound you?” His head inclined slightly, and Rey knew he was looking at the bandages wrapped around her middle. </p>
<p>Rey, dizzied by the day’s rapid-fire pace and the fever that swirled in her skull, answered him plainly and truthfully, “They shot me in the side. When I woke up they told me it’s been four days.”</p>
<p>Kylo Ren hummed, a sound that Rey could feel vibrating through the black material of his armor. His hand shifted further up her back, and then he was dipping down, leveraging the other under her knees as he swept her up into the air. </p>
<p>“What are you doing?!” Rey hissed and swatted at him weakly, regaining her boldness, somewhat. She was too weak to truly fight back. </p>
<p>“You can’t walk,” he sounded bored. He unclipped his cloak from his back and draped it over her body to conceal her near-nudity.</p>
<p>Rey pawed uselessly at his mask, twisting her body with what little strength she had left. “Put me down,” she demanded. The cloak was warm and thick, pressing soothingly against her extremities and banishing her chills. She couldn’t help but gather it in a bit closer. It passified her some.</p>
<p>	Kylo Ren did not deign to answer her. Silently, he carried her up the stairs and into the dimly lit police station. There was a massive hole bored into the ceiling, and the remnants of a massive bonfire beneath it. Rey could make out the shapes of blackened bones scattered amongst the ashes. </p>
<p>	Finally her muscles gave out, and she went limp in the arms of Kylo Ren who seemed entirely unworried about the battle still raging beyond the station’s glass doors. </p>
<p>	“Are you going to kill me?” She asked weakly, no longer under any illusion that she might be in control of her fate. </p>
<p>	“No.” </p>
<p>	He pressed through the frosted glass of the doors and out into the chaos. Fires were burning hot and high, fueled by dry leaves and wooden structures that had been built up around the station by the Master’s cult. Somewhere nearby women were shrieking in terror. Rey could see plainly that the Master and his people were losing badly. Their armor was primitive, patched together from poorly worked leather and bone. The Order soldiers wore factory made plate, white and black and grey. It absorbed the impact of arrows and clubs alike. All of them had modern weaponry. It was a slaughter. </p>
<p>	The fighting seemed to part around them as Kylo Ren stalked forward. In the distance Rey could see a bridge arching over what had once been a major interstate. It was dotted with rusted out cars, the asphalt cracked and bleached by the sun. On the other side was a train of vehicles and supply wagons. Rey had never seen such a large caravan before. </p>
<p>	Her mouth went dryer, and her hands began to tremble slightly where they rested over her belly, thankfully hidden beneath his cloak.</p>
<p>	“Do you remember me?” Her voice shook tellingly. An arrow whizzed past Kylo’s helmet, but it didn’t seem to phase him. </p>
<p>	He made a sound somewhere between a cough and a chuckle, and Rey realized she had amused him with her question. He did not answer, but he didn’t need to. Why else would he claim that he had been looking for her if not to exact revenge for his injury? </p>
<p>	“I’m already dying,” Rey reasoned, her voice hitched an octave, anxiety bringing new life to her limbs. She was terrified, she had grown up on stories of his cruelty. “Just leave me here to rot. The Master and his peons exacted your revenge for you.”</p>
<p>	He hummed pensively, approaching the overpass with long strides. Rey noticed the scent of him, a comingling of sweat, leather, and some spices she could not name. A shuddering breath eeked past her lips and she shut her eyes, allowing her head to loll into his shoulder. The world around them was too bright, too alive with the chorus of battle. Somehow he steadied her. </p>
<p>	Kylo Ren swept past one of the rusted cars, the battle raged on behind them. Eventually, when it suited him, he spoke in a manner that was almost coy; “If it is my revenge, only I can exact it. I don’t want you dead, girl.” </p>
<p>	“Why?” Rey gave a weak jerk, trying to roll out of his arms. It was futile. “What are you going to do to me?” </p>
<p>	A sigh passed through his mask, distorted slightly by the scrap. And that was the only answer Rey received. Across the bridge and into the throngs of his caravan he carried her, and she barraged him with questions all the way. It hurt to breathe and speak, but more severe than the pain was her fear of what Kylo Ren had in store for her. She’d heard tales of drawing-and-quartering, bloody eagles, and nails plucked painfully from their beds.</p>
<p>	He didn’t offer another word until they reached a van that was painted white, a red cross stenciled onto its side. It was a symbol Rey had seen before on the husks of old world ambulances and hospitals. </p>
<p>	Two women rushed out to meet them. They wore dark First Order uniforms and their hair was cropped short. They both stood at attention, saluting Kylo Ren as he approached, though their eyes were distant. </p>
<p>	“At ease,” he said, and they both relaxed into more natural postures. “There will be few casualties on our side when the fighting is through. I want all of your attention and resources to remain centered on this captive.” </p>
<p>	One of the women looked at Rey confusedly, obviously trying and failing to ascertain what made her so special. </p>
<p>	“Yessir,” the other woman spoke. </p>
<p>	They opened up the back of the van to reveal a small, mobile clinic. Rey had never seen so much sterilized, unrusted metal in her life. Kylo Ren carefully lowered her onto a narrow mattress which was able to protrude halfway out of the van with wheels on a track. </p>
<p>	Rey winced as her wound pulled. </p>
<p>	“She has a fever,” one of the women said, the back of her hand pressed cool and firm to Rey’s forehead. Then she pushed a small piece of plastic past Rey’s lips. Had any strength remained in her bones Rey would have spat it out then spat on the woman for good measure, but she could only lay limp under their machinations. </p>
<p>	The plastic stick beeped and it was plucked out from under her tongue. </p>
<p>	“One-oh-two-five.” </p>
<p>	Kylo Ren lingered at the doors to the van, watching from behind that expressionless mask. Rey stared back at him as a cold compress was laid over her head and a needle was lodged painfully into her arm. </p>
<p>	She hated him. She hated the insistent hands of the nurses. She hated the cruel hand fate had dealt her. </p>
<p>	“If she dies,” Kylo Ren’s voice was deceptively soft, “so do you.” </p>
<p>	The nurses began to work more frantically. Rey could see true, primal fear welling up behind their eyes. Even his own people were terrified of him. </p>
<p>	Kylo vanished from sight just as they began to peel away the bandages around Rey’s middle, revealing swollen, angry skin and a festering wound packed full of wild herbs mingled with greenish pus. </p>
<p>	“Shit,” one of the nurses breathed. “I don’t think they even tried to dig the bullet out. It’s so infected.” </p>
<p>	Tears were streaking Rey’s face as they examined and prodded the wound. Each delicate touch was like a red-hot knife plunged into her side. </p>
<p>	“Considering the state of their medicine, it might have been a wise choice, she could have bled out otherwise.” </p>
<p>	The first nurse shook her head and sat back, “Well it’s sure as hell a problem for us now.” </p>
<p>	The second appeared less daunted, and continued to speak as if Rey was not there, as if she couldn’t understand, “Let’s knock her out and get her started on IV antibiotics and fluids, then we can dig it out.” </p>
<p>	Rey was too weak with fever to form words, so she shut her eyes and let them do as they pleased. A cold sensation spread through her arm from where they had inserted the needle and soon after, darkness consumed her. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>	When she opened her eyes again she was somewhere else. The world was too dim, and her head spun too violently for her to make out any details, but she could sense a presence nearby. </p>
<p>	“What’s your name?” It was Kylo Ren’s voice, calm and curious. </p>
<p>	Rey rolled painfully onto her side, doubled vision beholding the back of his head where he sat at a desk. His hair was thick, clean, and shiny black. Wondering at its texture was only a passing, delirious thought. </p>
<p>	Rey’s mouth was too dry, and her tongue felt too large and rough as sandpaper, but still she managed to croak, “<i>thuck oth</i>.”</p>
<p>	Kylo Ren’s broad shoulders lowered in a disappointed sigh, “You’ll tell me in time.” </p>
<p>	Then the needle in her arm twinged and Rey was sucked back under again. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>	The second time she came awake she was lying on her back. Her hands were folded neatly over her stomach and she was peering up at the thin, membranous ceiling of a tent. Golden light peppered its way through, it was enough to make her head throb. </p>
<p>	“Here,” a soft, female voice spoke from her side. A gentle hand was under her head, helping her sit up enough to sip cool, clean water from a canteen. “Take it slow, you don’t want to make yourself sick.” </p>
<p>	Rey took a few small sips, wetting her tongue and cooling the sour knot in her stomach. Then she snatched the canteen away from the women and drank more deeply. Never before had she encountered water so fresh and cool and <i>clean</i>. There wasn’t even a hint of metallic taste to it. No particles. No filth. Just pure, thirst-quenching water. </p>
<p>When she was done she turned to meet the friendly smile of a woman in an Order uniform. She passed the canteen back to her. It was empty. Rey’s stomach turned in complaint but she managed not to vomit.</p>
<p>	“Where am I?” Her voice was cracked and weak. </p>
<p>	“We’re in Jefferson City,” the nurse answered. Her voice was soft and kind. “You’ve been kept unconscious for a week and a half to allow your wound time to heal.” </p>
<p>	“Why unconscious?” Rey asked, “How does that help?” </p>
<p>	“So you wouldn’t try to run with a potentially mortal wound,” Kylo Ren threw back the flap of the tent, voice rumbling and distorted through his mask. He sounded annoyed, and the nurse quickly made herself scarce. Wiping her hands down in a small basin of water then fleeing the tent. </p>
<p>	Rey laid her head back down and shut her eyes. She still couldn’t quite believe where she was and what had happened. Paige was dead. Poe and Finn and Rose were well beyond her reach, and she had fallen into the hands of a man who likely considered himself her enemy. She <i>had</i> been travelling with a band of Resistance fighters just days before her capture. </p>
<p>	“Am I your prisoner?” Rey questioned, deciding to get right to the core of things. She needed to know the severity of her circumstances, she needed to know what odds she was up against. </p>
<p>	Kylo Ren knelt down beside her, a gesture that seemed strangely intimate considering she was still swathed in his cloak. He must have never reclaimed it. Under her fingers she could feel stiff patches of dried blood, from his previous victims? Or from when they dislodged the bullet from her side?</p>
<p>	“You aren’t a prisoner,” he answered her. She wished she could see his eyes. She wanted to know where he was looking, and what emotion dwelled in him, if any. </p>
<p>	“So I can leave?” Her voice was almost hopeful.</p>
<p>	“You’re my guest,” he replied in non-answer. </p>
<p>	Rey puffed out her cheeks irritably, then carefully maneuvered herself up, bearing her weight on her hands. Their gazes were level, and she asked him again, more insistently this time, “Can. I. Leave.” </p>
<p>	Kylo made a sound of amusement, the same one she had heard him make on the battlefield the day he’d ‘rescued’ her, “Why would you want to, girl? Everything you could possibly need is within your reach here, among the Order.” </p>
<p>	“I don’t want what you have,” Rey’s voice turned venomous. “And stop calling me ‘girl’.”</p>
<p>	“Then give me a name to call you by.” </p>
<p>	Rey rolled her eyes and shifted her weight from one hand to the other. Could it really hurt? To give him her name? It wasn’t like she had a surname he could track her by. How much power was there really in a name? </p>
<p>	“Rey,” she answered him sourly. “My name is Rey.” </p>
<p>	And then he spoke it aloud, and it was confirmed for Rey that there was <i>ample</i> power in a name. </p>
<p>	“Rey…” He said it slow, and it lingered in the air between them as though he were considering it. The sound of it from his tongue, lilting with his deep voice, made Rey’s gut clench in what she thought was pure hatred. </p>
<p>	“Rey…” he said again, “Yes, I suppose that makes sense.” </p>
<p>	“What the fuck are you talking about?” </p>
<p>	His head jerked slightly, the visor of his helmet centering on her face as though he had previously been lost in thought, “It’s a powerful name. The sort of name I would expect a woman to bear if she were able to strike me off of my horse.” </p>
<p>	Rey blanched. She had almost forgotten about that little detail. And here she was, prone, weak, nauseous from medication and helpless under his hands. </p>
<p>	“I’m not going to kill you,” Kylo Ren said as if it were obvious, as if Rey were irrational for even considering that outcome. </p>
<p>	“Then why am I here?” </p>
<p>	In answer Kylo Ren extended a gloved hand between them. His digits trembled as he extended slowly forward, and because Rey was weak, dizzy and wounded she had nowhere to retreat. </p>
<p>	His fingertips brushed her cheek fleetingly, ghosting along the angle of her cheekbone. Rey went deathly still as the warm leather passed over her skin. </p>
<p>	<i>What the fuck?</i> She thought, but her lips could not form words. </p>
<p>	“Rey,” he breathed her name again, soft and almost reverent. It made Rey shiver, and despite the pain and sickness she found the strength within herself to recoil from him, trembling with indignation. </p>
<p>	Rey shook her head violently from side to side, “I don’t— <i>don’t touch me</i>.” </p>
<p>	Kylo Ren let out a dangerous, sordid chuckle and lowered his hand back to his side. Then he rose to stand, looming over her like the blackest spectre of death. And in that moment, peering up at his shadowed visage Rey decided that the cobbled scrap of his mask reminded her of a skull. </p>
<p>	“Rey is a powerful name,” he finally spoke. “You are immensely powerful.” </p>
<p>	He sounded smug, like somehow this explained anything to her. </p>
<p>	“You’re insane,” Rey spat back at him. Her arms were beginning to shake from the effort of holding her body up. “You’re <i>fucking</i> insane.” </p>
<p>	Kylo simply shrugged his shoulders and turned to leave, “Perhaps.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I know I don't always reply to all of them but I really do read and appreciate every comment I receive. When I get the notification that I have a new email I always want to jump up and down with excitement! </p>
<p>Thanks for reading &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Blood Stains</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>&lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A week passed. The days were monotonous and the nights were a struggle. Her wound bothered her at all hours, but never more than when she was alone in the private tent she had been assigned. There was a guard posted outside so she had nowhere to go, and she was made to relieve herself into a pot which an Order cadet would come and empty each morning. Her meals were brought to her, and when she wasn’t confined to her tent it was only to visit medbay for assessment by the doctor there. </p>
<p>	As she laid on her back, sweating despite the coolness of autumn, Rey’s mind would inevitably wander to Paige. Paige who had been bright and kind and genuine. Paige who had made even dreaded pregnancy look beautiful. Rey never cried, but her heart still ached, a physical pain in her chest that she could not soothe no matter how she tried. Unused to such attachment and emotion it made her feel sick, the nausea would twist around her stomach like a vice and she would skip meals, only eating when Kylo Ren came to coax the food into her personally. </p>
<p>	After a few brief days in Jefferson City the caravan continued to move, slowly wending its way along an ancient, broken road towards some unknown destination. Rey did not ask where, because she didn’t intend to make it that far. Once she was healed up enough she would find a way to escape. </p>
<p>	During the day she rode alone in the back of a supply truck. Each bump in the road made her wince as her wound pulled and her scabs cracked. Kylo Ren had graciously provided her with a few yellow paged volumes to occupy her mind as they traveled. Rey would flip through them, appreciating the smell of dust and calm that lingered between their pages. She would run her fingers along lines of text and mouth the sounds of letters to herself. She recognized only a few of the words, <i>this</i>, and <i>the</i>, and <i>that</i>, but she was too proud to admit to her captor that she could not read. </p>
<p>	He visited her each night. A grim spectre behind his rough hewn mask. Mostly he said nothing, only sat beside her and leafed through his own book or file. If she hadn’t eaten (she usually hadn’t), he would talk her into picking at her food. After that it was usually silence, But sometimes he would ask her questions. </p>
<p>	“Do you have a family name?” </p>
<p>	Rey’s stomach had soured, remember the photograph of her mother that had been tucked safely away at the bottom of her pack. The Master’s men had taken it from her, and she had not seen it since. </p>
<p>	Kylo took her silence as an answer, “That’s alright. Family means very little in this new world. It’s all about what we choose.” </p>
<p>	The next night he asked with innocent curiosity. </p>
<p>	“Do you have a favorite color, Rey?” </p>
<p>	It took her aback. What an odd questions to ask. </p>
<p>	“Orange,” she saw little harm in humoring him this time. She could see no possible way that something so basic could be used against her. </p>
<p>	He hummed thoughtfully, mask still inclined towards his book, “That’s surprising. Orange is a little garish, no?” </p>
<p>	Rey scowled at him, “I only ever see it when the sun sets just right. It fills up the whole sky. It’s not <i>garish</i>.” </p>
<p>	“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” he admitted, and he finally moved his head to indicate he was looking at her. “I suppose such bright colors would be a rarity in the wasteland.” </p>
<p>	Rey did not answer him. She turned her attention back to the book she was pretending to read. This one was heavy with shiny pages and an abundance of pictures to occupy her mind. Old bones and pretty rocks to hint at the beauty of the dead world. </p>
<p>	Kylo was right. She found more colors within the pages of the book than she had even seen out in the wastes. Her life had been a smear of brown, grey, and dull green. Pus, dried blood, and rusted metal. Vomit and piss so dark it was a miracle her skin wasn’t cracking and dry. Her world was ugly, but she couldn’t bring herself to hate it, or even resent it. There was a beauty in that ugliness, a silent message echoing from the old world. <i>Don’t repeat our mistakes, or else the world will be left with nothing but black and white.</i> </p>
<p>	On the seventh night Rey found herself totally exhausted by his strange, benign questioning. She was still sore from her wound dressings being changed and the evening was uncharacteristically hot for the season. Or perhaps her fever had returned. </p>
<p>	Before he could even open his mouth to speak Rey cut in. Her tone was harsh and demanding. She wanted answers.</p>
<p>	“Why were you following us in the first place? We were a tiny party just trying to leave Junktown. Why were you tracking us? It couldn’t have just been to get to me.” </p>
<p>	Kylo sat in the wooden chair that occupied the space near the tent flap. Rey couldn’t read his expression through the mask but he didn’t seem at all surprised by her sudden questioning. He took his time answering, making himself comfortable before deigning to answer. </p>
<p>“Your companions were carrying something I needed. When you shot me off of my horse my meaning was renewed and reinvigorated but, no, you were not my original purpose.” </p>
<p>“What were they carrying that you could have possibly needed?” She remembered how ragtag and unprepared they had been, and she couldn’t imagine them possessing anything that the First Order might want. </p>
<p>“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say,” he did sound truly regretful. </p>
<p>Rey sat up, leaning back on her elbows and wincing slightly as she adjusted her weight onto them. Beneath her blanket she was clothed only in loose fitting pants and a breast band made from linen wound around her chest. The blanket slid down her body, revealing the flat plane of her stomach. Though his eyes were obscured she could feel his gaze shift to her body. Rey set her jaw and tugged the blanket back up roughly, concealing herself once more. His <i>attention</i> made her skin flame and her heart thunder irritatingly. </p>
<p>“Well you failed. I wasn’t carrying whatever it is you wanted and I don’t know anything about it.” Her jaw was set, and she smirked at him defiantly.</p>
<p>Kylo snorted, “That is hardly the case. We wouldn’t be continuing westward with the supply train if I were empty handed, little girl. My beloved master would not suffer that.” </p>
<p>“What do you mean you aren’t empty handed?” Rey’s heart sank into her stomach and the color fled her cheeks. There were several days of time between her parting from the Resistance group and Kylo rescuing her from the Master. Anything could have happened during those intervening days. </p>
<p>“I mean exactly what I say. I have acquired the item I was tasked with acquiring. And more than that, you led me directly to the elusive Luke Skywalker. My Master will be immensely pleased with me.” </p>
<p>Rey was taken by a sudden wave of nausea and dizziness. She fell back onto her pillow with a soft sound of confusion. What did he mean ‘led him to Luke Skywalker’? She remembered Mara and Luke and Anakin as they had left them, waving from the dirt road that led out of Fisher’s End. </p>
<p>“What did you do to them?” Rey’s voice was quiet and shook with fear. </p>
<p>Kylo did not answer her. He only watched her for a long moment, the intensity of his hidden gaze kept her pinioned to the ground when all she wanted to do was run as far and fast as her legs would carry her. </p>
<p>“Did you find Poe and the others? Did you hurt them? Did you kill Luke?” The questions came as a rapidfire of panicked speech. On the ground beside her the book lay forgotten, open to a page depicting the bones of a massive, ancient sea creature. She imagined that Kylo Ren was like its great, toothy maw, opened wide and swallowing up any unfortunate soul who strayed into his path. Surely she was next. Surely he would gut her and leave her entrails for the crows. </p>
<p>When he finally did speak, he gave no answer, only low, rumbling reassurance, “I will never hurt you, Rey. We’re too alike, I couldn’t hurt you even if I wanted to.” </p>
<p>“We’re <i>nothing</i> alike,” Rey spat, twisting back up into a sitting position. Her body ached in complaint and her wound pulsed and stung. Burning tears sprang prickly in the corners of her eyes. She remembered Paige, cold and dead and wrapped up in a blanket. She wondered if that was what the rest of them were like now, dead, cold, picked over by coyotes and carrion crows. </p>
<p>“Did. You. Kill. Them.” Her throat was thick, voice wavering and belying the threat she was trying to convey. </p>
<p>Kylo Ren shifted his massive body forward, elbows resting on his knees and fingers folded in front of his mask, “Not all of them.” </p>
<p>It was a cruel taunt, and enough of a blow to send Rey reeling once more. She collapsed back onto her pillow again, breathless. In truth she didn’t care for any of them so deeply. She hardly knew them. But they were the first people she had held any fondness for in her entire life. And little Ethan… he was just a baby. <i>Paige’s</i> baby. </p>
<p>“Don’t fret too much,” he sounded entirely bored with the direction the conversation had taken, as if killing and discussions of his killing were mundane. “I had a personal quarrel to settle with Skywalker. His woman and their adopted boy escaped.” </p>
<p>“What about Poe and Rose and Finn?” Rey pleaded, she was openly crying now, face streaked and wet. She felt weak and small, full up with fear. </p>
<p>“We had no need for the woman and baby,” Kylo gave a sordid chuckle, and he leaned forward even more. She could feel his gaze burning into her, peering past her steely exterior and into her soul. “We left them to their own devices in the wasteland.” </p>
<p>Rose was clever and resourceful, and Rey had hope that she might make it to safety on her own. But Finn and Poe… Rey grit her teeth and bit back her tears, “Did you kill the men?” </p>
<p>“No,” Rey could hear the twisted smile in his voice. “They aren’t dead.” </p>
<p>“Tell me.” </p>
<p>“You’re on a need-to-know basis, Rey. And right now there is certain information that you simply don’t need to know.”</p>
<p>He closed his book briskly and rose to his feet, towering above her intimidatingly. </p>
<p>“They’re in this camp, aren’t they?” Rey demanded sharply, words half a hiss as rage split through her fear with the sharpness of a blade. Her muscles coiled, and suddenly he seemed much less like a mountain, and much more like a man. </p>
<p>	“Goodnight, Rey.” He turned to leave, but before he could make it very far Rey sprung up from her blankets, aches and ills forgotten as she shouted and flung herself onto his broad back. </p>
<p>	Kylo grunted with the force of her impact, but he didn’t stumble or fall. Hearing the racket of noise Rey made, a guard stepped into the tent from outside, his sidearm drawn and pointed squarely at Rey’s head where it popped over Kylo’s shoulder. </p>
<p>	“No!” Kylo grunted, grappling with Rey’s arms around his neck, “Harm her and you die, cadet!” </p>
<p>	Kylo loosened her grip around his neck and thrust her back onto her nylon sleeping back. Her bandages were already pinkening with fresh blood. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears and her vision was still tinted a dangerous red, but she found she was too weak to stand up and resume her assault.</p>
<p>	“You’re a fucking bastard!” She settled for insults. “You’re a maniac and a fucking murderer!” </p>
<p>	Kylo was breathing heavily, looking down on her where she was crumpled on the floor. His wide chest rose and fell, drawing in deep, calming breath. </p>
<p>	“Hellcat,” he murmured. “You’re too spirited for your own good, Rey. That might get you killed someday.” </p>
<p>	“Fuck you,” she spat, nails digging into her palms. </p>
<p>	“Is that a request?” Kylo answered in low warning. The suggestion was enough to make Rey’s skin crawl and she fell silent, tucking herself up into a painful, quivering ball. Her side throbbed, and she was certain now that her fever was back. Blood dribbled out from under her bandage, and Kylo noticed. </p>
<p>	“I will be taking my leave, now. I’m sending a nurse to tend to your wound, behave.” </p>
<p>	Rey shivered and shut her eyes, nodding her head in bitter submission. She had no desire to die here, in the hands of Kylo Ren. </p>
<p>	Before he left, Kylo paused and stared down at her. Rey wished she could see his face so she might glean some inkling of what he was thinking. Then he stepped forward, boot heavy on the ground. He knelt beside her and Rey retreated as far away as her body would allow. </p>
<p>	Kylo caught her chin in a gloved hand and forced her to meet his gaze through his visor. She could faintly make out the dark impressions of eyes through the tinted material, nothing more than black smudges in the low light. </p>
<p>	“You’ll come to understand my way of thinking, Rey. I promise.” </p>
<p>	Then he dropped her face and exited the tent in a whirl of black. </p>
<p>	Rey let out a staggered, shuddering breath and closed her eyes against the reality that surrounded her. Her very being seemed to ache, and she was filled with rage and fear that mingled dangerously in her chest. </p>
<p>	From their conversation she had learned a single thing, something that, once she had recovered some of her strength, she intended to act on.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hope everyone had a lovely holiday! Not sure if this will get another update before, so Happy New Year as well!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. resistance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A short but hopefully entertaining update!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Three days after Kylo’s tacit revelation of Finn and Poe’s whereabouts, Rey was still too weak to act. When she tried to stand, pain shot lightning up her side and down through her hip, reaching her fingers and toes and making her bite back bitter tears. The medics claimed that they removed all of the bullet, but Rey was beginning to suspect they left a sliver lodged inside of her to keep her immoble. Kylo called her insane for even suggesting such a thing, and she spat on his shiny black boot in reply. </p>
<p>	On the third day a medic found that, upon examination, her wound was swollen, red, and hot to the touch. It had been healing nicely up until then. Rey’s blood ran cold as she watched the medic apply a viscous, stinging topical ointment. </p>
<p>	Kylo Ren was quickly summoned, because infection was a killer in the wasteland, even amongst the First Order ranks. He stormed into the tent in a seething maelstrom of black and anger. </p>
<p>	“How did this happen?”</p>
<p>	There were several medics gathered in the tent now, and one doctor. It felt crowded and Rey was uncomfortable being stripped down in front of so many strangers.</p>
<p>	“Conditions have been imperfect, sir,” the doctor, a silver haired man with cold grey eyes answered tersely. “It has proven difficult to maintain optimal—</p>
<p>	“I don’t give a shit about <i>conditions</i>, doctor. You had one. Single. Job.” </p>
<p>	Even Rey felt afraid. The aura Kylo emitted was vile and dangerous. It felt like the warlord was on a hair-trigger, just waiting for someone to give him an excuse to lash out. His sword was strapped to his back, a wordless promise to all who stood before him.  </p>
<p>	The doctor stood up straighter, “Our apologies, sir.” </p>
<p>	“Apologies mean nothing. I want that wound swabbed for MRSA and any other resistance, and I want it treated aggressively.”</p>
<p>	Already a medic was kneeling down beside Rey’s naked torso, swabbing the wound with a clean q-tip along the lines of her stitches, gathering up greenish pus and black scab. Rey’s face scrunched up in pain and Kylo Ren reacted in turn. He gave a sharp exhale that rattled his mask and the look he pinned the doctor with must have been fiery and pointed.</p>
<p>	“If the girl dies, so do all of you. If conditions were not <i>optimal</i> I expect you to make them so. Do you understand me?” </p>
<p>	“Yes sir,” none of them could look at him, none dared defy him. Hunched in his oppressive shadow they averted their fearful eyes and scurried to finish up their required work within the tent. Kylo watched them, and Rey watched Kylo. </p>
<p>	She could feel the intensity of his gaze, even through his mask. And she couldn’t imagine his eyes as anything but red hot coals behind his visor. </p>
<p>	Mercifully, as they finished prodding at her wound site, one of the medics raised her scratchy blanket to cover her bare chest, giving her a grim nod of acknowledgment. </p>
<p>	“Thank you,” Rey said, and she gathered the blanket in closer. Chills were beginning to take hold of her limbs. Two large white pills were pressed into the palm of the right hand, and a canteen of water into her left. </p>
<p>	“What are you giving her?” Kylo demanded, breaking his silent vigil. </p>
<p>	“Doxycycline,” the doctor answered stiffly, watching with anxious eyes as Rey swallowed down the pills. “We’ll know by tonight what potential resistances there are and we will adjust the treatment course appropriately.”</p>
<p>	“Good,” Kylo’s icy voice implied that things were very much not <i>good</i>. “Have you done everything you can do for her?” </p>
<p>	“For now, yes.” The doctor and the medics all lingered anxiously, wringing their hands in front of their bodies. </p>
<p>	“Then get out,” Kylo snapped, and he stepped aside so they could reach the tent flap. </p>
<p>	They all scrambled out of the tent, eager to get away from the dark commander and his pet. Once the tent was empty, Kylo remained, once again alone with his quarry. Rey squirmed under his eyes, feeling hot and cold simultaneously. She wanted to be left alone to rest, her body was aching and tired. </p>
<p>	“What’s MRSA?” Rey finally broke the unnerving silence. She didn’t particularly care, she’d gathered enough to understand it was a type of infection, but she couldn’t stand that awful quiet any longer. </p>
<p>	Kylo moved, kneeling on one knee at her side. Ignoring her whine of complaint and her hands grasping weakly to maintain coverage, he pulled the blanket down past her belly button so he could get a closer look at the wound site. Thankfully he didn’t touch it, it still stung from the medics’ ministrations. </p>
<p>	“MRSA is a type of infection,” he explained. “It resists most of our medicines.” </p>
<p>	“Why?” </p>
<p>	“Because the people of the old world were careless,” there was contempt in his tone. “They overused, and ignored the warnings of their wise men and scientists until it was too late. Now we live on with their folly.” </p>
<p>	Rey swallowed thickly. When she pulled the blanket up to obscure her small breasts once more Kylo Ren said nothing. She wished she could see his face so she might glean some idea of what he might be thinking. </p>
<p>	“If I have MRSA will I die?” A bolt of fear struck suddenly through her heart, that she had come so far only to lose her life to a microbe.</p>
<p>	“No,” Kylo Ren replied fast and fierce. “You are a priority patient. All of our best resources will be funneled into your care until you make a full recovery.”</p>
<p>	Rey nodded weakly and quickly found she had nothing else to say. Kylo’s animosity towards the old world was somewhat refreshing after her weeks spent in the presence of the Resistance, and it disturbed her that she might align with him in an opinion, no matter how small. </p>
<p>	“You haven’t asked very many questions of me, Rey. I’ve been doing most of the talking in our nightly visits.” He observed, voice void of any tell or emotion. </p>
<p>	“I know everything I need to know about you,” Rey answered coldly. His reputation had preceded him. She already knew all the tales of his madness and cruelty. She still could hardly believe she was actually <i>Kylo Ren’s</i> captive. </p>
<p>	“Do you now?” There was a touch of amusement in his tone, “What have you heard of me?” </p>
<p>	“I know you’ve killed a lot of people.” </p>
<p>	“Very true,” Rey suspected he was smirking beneath his mask. </p>
<p>	“I know you tortured people in awful ways,” she had heard whispers of the red eagle. Ribs cut and splayed out from the back while the victim shrieked and pleaded for death. </p>
<p>“Only for the good of the First Order,” Ren replied, sounding decidedly less amused. </p>
<p> “And what exactly <i>is</i> the good of the First Order?” Rey demanded. She tried to sit up but she found her side was too painful to abide the movement. </p>
<p>	“The total reshaping of the wasteland,” Kylo answered her simply, and he dropped his other knee to the floor so he could loom over her more fully. “Not to rebuild but to remake entirely.”</p>
<p>	“And how exactly do I play into that plan? I can’t help your cause, I’m nobody.” </p>
<p>	“Not to me,” Kylo’s voice came low, rumbling deep in his broad chest. Rey blinked at him dumbly, at a sudden loss for words. She didn’t understand what he meant by that, or why. But she knew that those words wracked her to her core. </p>
<p>	Resolve shaken, she looked away from him. </p>
<p>	“Don’t be afraid, Rey,” A gloved fingertip traced tenderly along the curve of her jaw. “You’ll come to understand my position in time.” </p>
<p>	Rey shook her head, “The people of Junktown, of all of the free parts of the wasteland, we just want to be left alone.” </p>
<p>	Kylo sighed and dropped his hand, “That simply isn’t possible, Rey. Those people, your people, are living in unknowing darkness. But we can illuminate their world for them. I can illuminate it for <i>you</i>. I just need you to give me a chance.” </p>
<p>	“You’re a monster,” Rey spat back at him. Her skin seared where he had touched her and she resented her own body for the reaction. </p>
<p>	Kylo Ren chuckled low and dark, “I am.” </p>
<p>	They remained like that for a long, tense moment. Rey on her back, naked from the waist up beneath the thin material of her blanket. Kylo on his knees beside her, eyes combing over her body beneath his mask. </p>
<p>	“Have you been enjoying your books?” Kylo asked as he climbed back to his feet, making to leave, Rey hoped. There was a knowing smugness to his tone. </p>
<p>	“Yes,” Rey said, and it wasn’t a lie because she quite liked the ones with pictures. </p>
<p>	“Don’t lie to me, scavenger. Who in Junktown could have taught a poor little creature like you to read?” </p>
<p>	Rey jumped to her own defence, simultaneously revealing her hand, “I know my letters! And I know most of the sounds!” Her face felt hot with embarrassment and she shot upright despite the pain. The blanket dropped momentarily beneath her breasts and her flush darkened. </p>
<p>	His helmet ticked downward, clearly intrigued by her slip, which only further incensed Rey. </p>
<p>	“Don’t look at my tits you gross bastard!”</p>
<p>	Kylo raised his hands, a strangled sound roughly akin to laugher emanating from his scrap metal mask, “I’ll bring a book tonight. I’ll read to you. Stories are good for healing.” </p>
<p>	“I don’t want your stories,” Rey snapped. Then she collapsed back into her pillows with a huff, her side thrumming with pain that throbbed from her fingertips to her toes. She shut her eyes and tried to breathe through it. </p>
<p>	Kylo Ren left silently, like a spectre. A wasteland spirit.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Sorry for the long break, I've been dealing with a lot of mental health struggles lately &lt;3 </p>
<p>Comments and kudos do make my day!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. black of night</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>:p</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The antibiotic pills made Rey dream vividly. First of Junktown, imbued with more color than it had ever possessed in the waking world. Rey wandered its filthy streets and alleyways, fingertips tracing along the cold galvanized steel and scrap of the architecture. She could see her old peers, comrades in poverty. They stood smoking, drinking their grain liquors and peering up at the cloud shrouded sun. No hope for them in the wastes beyond short, fleeting lives of unimportance. Rey had been like them. She <i>was</i> like them, presently. And it terrified her to look upon their faces, lined with age and radioactive dirt. So she beseeched her own mind to show her something else, anything else. </p>
<p>	What came next was somehow both a blessing, and far worse. Paige, beautiful with a wide smile, the gentle curve of her dark eyes leading into full, rosy cheeks. Her dark hair was pulled away from her face, and there wasn’t a shadow about her. It was a very calm dream. For a long time Rey was perfectly still, watching. No one else was there, just them, and it was not lost on Rey that she had never actually seen Paige so healthy and whole. In their brief time together she had only seen her body ravaged and monstrous with pregnancy, then cold, white and dead. </p>
<p>	“You aren’t real,” Rey said. It was unfair, this teasing within her subconscious. As if her own self wanted to rub salt in her wounds, chastising her for forming any sort of attachment. </p>
<p>	The dream Paige did not answer her, she stared blankly past Rey, through her to some unseen horizon. </p>
<p>	“Say something,” Rey demanded. But the unreal Paige did not move. She did not blink or breathe. She only stood still, looking picturesque. </p>
<p>	“It’s time to wake up,” Rey said to herself, unable to look away. “Paige is dead, it’s time to wake up.” </p>
<p>	She sat bolt upright, gasping for air as though she had been submerged. She swallowed thickly, and when she touched her face the tips of her fingers came away wet. Quickly, she swiped away the tears. They were a show of weakness, and certainly not something she could allow her enemy to see. </p>
<p>	Beyond the fabric walls of the tent she could hear the camp bustling despite the apparent darkness. It must have been late, or early, she could not say which. Engines revved and voices raised. They must have been pulling up and preparing to depart on the next leg of their journey to <i>somewhere</i>. Rey had yet to needle that particular detail from her captor. </p>
<p>	She reached for the canteen that was left with her and drank deeply of the cool water within. It was cleaner than any she’d ever tasted before, even that which had been produced by her purifier couldn’t compete. </p>
<p>	Next she peeled back her own bandages to assess her wound. It looked better already, the swollen, hot redness was gone, and though it still wept some the fluid was almost clear interspersed with flecks of black scab. Rey felt more clear headed as well, and her body wasn’t so irritatingly warm as it had been the night before. The drugs were working. It wasn’t MRSA, or any of the other terrible infections Kylo had been worried about. </p>
<p>	Tentatively, Rey climbed to her feet. At first her head spun, and she struggled to maintain her balance. She pitched forward and vomited clear bile onto the nylon floor of the tent. But once the initial spell had passed, and she rinsed her mouth out with more water, she found she felt better than she had in days. </p>
<p>	She clenched her fists, testing her own strength. It was sufficient so that she gained some confidence in herself. The camp was confused at present, a ceaseless din of activity in which a girl could easily lose herself. Finn and Poe were waiting for her, somewhere. </p>
<p>	Days of inactivity had left her weak, so she dared not allow herself even a moment of idleness, lest she lose herself once more to exhaustion. She parted the tent flaps carefully, they were held together by a single measly button which clasped on the inside. </p>
<p>	Outside she found her guard napping in an ancient folding chair. He had his hat pulled down over his eyes, shoulders rising and falling steadily despite the din around him. The moon was low in the west, and Rey estimated it to be sometime in the early morning. There wasn’t yet a dusky hint of dawn on the horizon. Now was the time, she would have no better an opportunity. </p>
<p>	<i>Run</i>, instinct bade her. <i>Run now, escape while you can. Fuck Finn, fuck Poe, fuck their Resistance. Run.</i></p>
<p>	It was a powerful impulse, but as Rey slinked out of her prison in only a breast band and a pair of loose linen capris, she turned away from the obvious exit back into the untamed wastes. She reasoned that she would die of her wound alone out there. She spelled out a dozen reasons for her to remain with the First Order, to free her former companions and return to her tent undetected. </p>
<p>	And why was she helping them at all? She chastised herself as she limped behind a truck, crouching behind one of the massive tires and waiting for a small patrol to pass. The reason she settled on was Paige. Because she had a strange preoccupation with the woman, and it was what Paige would have wanted. Freedom for her husband, a father for their son. </p>
<p>	Rey wandered aimlessly for a while. Shrouded in night, no one batted an eye as she crept through the encampment. Bonfires hissed and spat dying plumes of black smoke as they were quenched with buckets of water, the headlights of vehicles flashed menacingly, cutting through the succor of the darkness and making Rey flinch. She kept moving, eyes roving for any indication of a temporary jail or prison. </p>
<p>	Kylo did not visit in the morning, or even the middle of the night, as far as Rey knew. So she hoped that she had some time before her absence was noted. <i>Hoped</i>. She hadn’t paid close attention to the guards. She was unsure if they had been checking up on her. </p>
<p>	Eventually she came to the far side of the camp. It was darker there, quieter. Fewer people roamed the paths, and only a scant few torches offered up any light. Shadowed against the moon Rey was able to make out the shape of a gallows, and beyond it a few haphazard crosses adorned with the rotting silhouettes of expired Order dissidents. </p>
<p>	A chill shot up her spine, and for a moment she was frozen with fear. Was that the fate that awaited her if she was caught? Strung up on rotting wood, left to have her eyes picked out by carrion crows? </p>
<p>	A shuddering breath fled her lips, and she crouched in the shadow of a trailer. As horrible as it was, she was certain she was in the right place. The bodies on the crosses were a warning, she could only hope that Finn and Poe weren’t among them. </p>
<p>	She crept around to the back of the trailer, which was illuminated by the guttering light of a torch, and she found it was open. It’s door served as a ramp, leading up and into the darkness of the interior. Inside she could hear soft snoring, and sniffling like someone had been crying. There was a guard, though he seemed to be making rounds rather than remaining stationary beside the trailer. </p>
<p>	Rey waited until the guard had passed out of sight, then padded barefoot up and into the trailer. </p>
<p>	It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the pitch blackness, but her nose was immediately struck by the scent of rot.</p>
<p>	“Wh-who’s there?” A voice rasped weakly, and it was familiar. </p>
<p>	Through the shadows Rey was able to make out the vaguest suggestion of Poe Dameron’s handsome face. </p>
<p>	“Shhhh,” She hushed him, and she felt around him to find that his wrists were shackled to the walls. </p>
<p>	Nearby someone jerked out of an uneasy sleep, “What’s happening?” </p>
<p>	“Shut the fuck up,” Rey hissed as the voice that undoubtably belonged to Finn. “I’m trying to help you.” </p>
<p>	Her fingertips found the locking mechanism. She was familiar with the general make, but would need something to serve as a pick. </p>
<p>	Thinking quickly, she rushed back towards the entrance of the trailer, “Hold on.” </p>
<p>	The guard had already circled past again, so when Rey threw the torch onto the ground there was no one around to see. The sconce in which the torch had been resting was screwed shautily into the metal that edged the rear of the trailer. Rey pulled it free with a few determined tugs, loosing several screws along with the thin metal slats that had held the torch. She picked up one of each and scurried back into the darkness. </p>
<p>	“Be very quiet,” Rey breathed, slotting one of the slats into the lock and pushing on it gently with the screw. She felt along until it clicked and gave, and Poe tumbled to the floor in a panting heap. </p>
<p>	“What the hell?” The guard spoke from outside, having discovered the torch still burning on the ground. </p>
<p>	Rey rushed to Finn, and made quick work of his shackles as well. </p>
<p>	The guard lifted the torch, and held it in the mouth of the trailer, squinting as he peered inside.</p>
<p>	Finn remained deathly still, pressing his back to the thin, galvanized wall and pretending to still be in shackles. Poe huddled close to the floor, hoping to avoid notice. Rey took his place against the wall, pressing her wrists into the open shackles and worrying her lip. </p>
<p>	<i>Don’t come any closer</i>, she willed unable to look away from the threatening shadow looming at the trailer’s entrance. <i>Don’t look any closer.</i></p>
<p>	“What’s going on, soldier?” A second voice shattered the tension. Nasal and strangely accented, it shattered the tension and drew the attention of the guard momentarily away from the trailer. </p>
<p>	“Go, go, go,” Rey rasped, circling her arm in a tight motion. Now was their only chance to make a break for it while they still had the upper hand. They needed the element of surprise or they would never escape the encampment. </p>
<p>	Finn and Poe both leapt into action, and Rey decided she would follow them. They were caught, and if she remained in the camp she would surely be punished. </p>
<p>	There was no time to formulate any sort of escape plan as they peeled out and into the open. First Poe, then Finn, and finally Rey emerged in a scramble, all of them setting their sights on the wall of trees beyond the crosses. That was where freedom lay. </p>
<p>	“What the fuck!” The guard shouted. </p>
<p>	At the same time the owner of the second voice simultaneously produced a firearm and caught Rey by the back of her breastband. </p>
<p>	The air was forced from her lungs and she was lifted onto her toes in his leather gloved grip. She felt the cold steel of a gun’s barrel thrust harshly into her temple, it would surely leave a bruise. </p>
<p>	“Stop or I kill her!” The man demanded, that strange accent lilting every word. Rey struggled, but it only earned her the sharp knock of a knee in her spine. </p>
<p>	Poe and Finn both stopped at the edge of the shadows, gazes locked on Rey where the man held her. </p>
<p>	“You’re Ren’s pet, aren’t you?” The man hissed in her ear, and she shrunk away from his icy tone. Then he exclaimed loud enough for Poe and Finn to hear, “Come back and surrender yourselves or I’ll slaughter her, and then you.” </p>
<p>	“Go!” Rey gripped the man’s around where it crossed her throat. There was nothing left for her now, no chance at survival that she could see. A selfless death then, maybe. A foolish one, certainly. “Run!”</p>
<p>	She didn’t need to shout it a second time. Both of the men turned and lit out into the darkness. </p>
<p>	“Damn it!” The man dropped her into a shivering heap on the cold, hard ground. </p>
<p>	“Should I gather a search party, General Hux?” The guard asked, voice small and quivering with fear. </p>
<p>	“Yes, you insufferable twit. Now!” The guard scurried off. </p>
<p>	Hux’s cold gaze turned back to Rey. She didn’t bother trying to run, he would certainly outpace her. </p>
<p>	“If you weren’t Ren’s plaything I would have painted the ground with your brains, you conniving little <i>bitch</i>,” and he kicked her hard in her side, the steel toe of his polished boot digging into her wound and opening it up in a fresh torrent of blood. “I told him to kill you, or keep you on a short leash! Now look what you’ve done! We had the upper hand and now we’ve lost it because Kylo’s thirst for fucking <i>pussy</i> wasn’t satisfied with Order women.” </p>
<p>	Rey winced at the seeming confirmation of her impending assault. She kept her mouth shut tight. She wouldn’t apologize, she would die with dignity. </p>
<p>	Hux chuffed humorlessly, “And I can’t even kill you.” </p>
<p>	He hoisted her up by her breast band, planting her on her feet. She wilted sideways like a dying flower, side pulsing with agony. </p>
<p>	“Come,” He said, tersely. A group of soldiers rushed past them in a blur of flashlights and tactical armor, armed to the teeth. “I’m taking you to your master. He’ll deal with you as he sees fit, whore.” </p>
<p>	He pressed the barrel of his gun in between the notches of her spine, urging her along. She left a trail of blood as they made their way through the camp. The sun was beginning to rise now, painting the eastern horizon a dusky purple. The stars began to fade. Rey kept her eyes on the sky as if it were the only thing keeping her on her feet, without it she would surely collapse and bleed out in the dirt. </p>
<p>	Finally, Rey panting and teetering from one foot to the other, they came to a wide, multi-roomed tent. Inside it was lit up bright, Ren already awake and making preparations for the day. </p>
<p>	Rey felt dizzy, and she shut her eyes as Hux shoved her through the tent flap. </p>
<p>	“Ren!” The general declared, “I found your <i>whore</i> meddling about with the prisoners!” </p>
<p>	Kylo appeared from a side room, hands fumbling as he pulled his helmet over his head. Rey caught a glimpse of silky, dark hair. </p>
<p>	“What?” He snapped. Then, “Why is she bleeding?!”</p>
<p>	“She freed the Resistance dissidents!” Hux snarled and shoved her forward and onto her knees. Rey yelped audibly as her wound pulled. “She has compromised our entire situation. She needs to die.” </p>
<p>	“<i>Rey</i>,” Kylo breathed her name with such fire that Rey shuddered, shutting her eyes again so she didn’t have to look at him. He didn’t even acknowledge Hux’s presence as he rushed to aid, “What happened?” </p>
<p>	His hands were bare, and he touched her face with such tenderness that it made Rey’s stomach turn. His touch scalded her skin, so hot, and yet she couldn’t help but lean into it a little. </p>
<p>	“He kicked me,” Rey exhaled, words barely her own. She hadn’t wanted to say it, and the words were like a match over gasoline. </p>
<p>	Kylo rose to his full height and grabbed Hux by his collar, “You fucking touched her?” </p>
<p>	His voice was low and dangerous. Rey rolled onto her good side, clutching her knees to her chest and watching the interaction transpire from the floor. </p>
<p>	“She freed the prisoners, Ren,” Hux jerked out of his hold. He squared his shoulders, but also he was backing towards the exit like he was afraid. “If our search parties fail to locate them they will surely return to the Resistance and report what we have <i>obtained</i>.” </p>
<p>	Kylo shook his dark head, hearing none of it, “She. Is. Mine. You don’t touch what’s mine, Hux. I don’t give a shit about the circumstances.” </p>
<p>	His low voice dripped with a possessiveness that made Rey’s blood like ice. <i>His</i>. He was insane, but he was also the only thing standing between herself and execution at the hands of the Order. </p>
<p>	“When we reach Zion the Supreme Leader will hear about this, Ren!” Hux was halfway out the door, his voice audibly shaking. “Both of you will face the consequences of your actions!” </p>
<p>	Then the general was gone, and Kylo and Rey were left alone in the tent. His focus was immediately on her, kneeling beside her and turning her body so that he could better see her wound. </p>
<p>	“<i>Rey</i>,” his voice shuddered. “You’re bleeding.” </p>
<p>	Rey nodded, wincing as his fingertips probed her. His hands were very large and very pale. </p>
<p>	“Hux says you betrayed my trust?” He asked, softly. There was even a current of understanding beneath his words, “That doesn’t matter right now, I’ll call for a medic.” </p>
<p>	He caressed her face briefly with one of those big, sturdy hands, then stepped outside and shouted for a medic. </p>
<p>	“They’re coming,” he said as he stepped back inside. Gingerly, he hoisted her up into his arms and carried her into the next room. It was spacious, and housed an actual bed replete with fine black linens. He laid her down on them, not caring that her blood speckled the pristine duvet. </p>
<p>	Too weak to resist, Rey’s lashes fluttered as he pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. </p>
<p>	“What trouble you get into,” he lamented in good humor. “You don’t know what you want, do you? For the wasteland, <i>for yourself</i>.” </p>
<p>	Rey gave a weak shake of her head. No. No, she didn’t know what she wanted. She had wanted Paige, maybe, but she had been forbidden. She had wanted a peaceful life and anonymous death within the familiar surroundings of Junktown. But now those things were gone from her reach, and she was faced with a future full of unknowable things. </p>
<p>	“It’s okay,” Kylo soothed, and his voice was like honey, thick and sweet. “I know what you want, because we are so much alike, little one.” </p>
<p>	He touched her cheek again, just as the medics came pouring into the room. </p>
<p>	“Hux will pay for hurting you, my dear,” he stood up and backed away from the bed, making room for the medics. “And what you’ve done will be forgiven, in time.” </p>
<p>	Rey could only nod as the sharp sting of disinfectant shot up her side. Next came the pull of the needle as they sewed her up once more. She wondered passively, staring up at the thin ceiling of the tent, if this meant she was somehow allied with Ren, now. </p>
<p>	She turned her honey gaze to him and knew he was smiling behind the scrap of his mask. </p>
<p>	<i>Maybe</i>. </p>
<p>	Rey shuddered.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>:D</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Fire Tongue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>&lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the following days Rey could feel that she was being watched more closely. Her guard was doubled, riding alongside the truck she rode in the back of. The procession was on the move again, Jefferson City long forgotten behind them. She heard nothing of when or where they would be stopping next. The caravan would only stop for a few short hours in the black of night, then, before any hint of the dawn yet kissed the sky, they would begin to move again. </p><p>	Attached to some of the vehicles were massive blue-white lights that shone with the intensity of stars. They kept the more perilous dangers of the wastes away as the line ambled onward through the blackness. Moths flocked around them like crows to carrion, and on nights when Rey was kept in an open-backed transport she would make a game of watching them kill themselves on the massive, incandescent bulbs. The smaller ones usually lasted longer, so Rey would wager fake bets against herself, choosing the moth she figured would last the longest. Eventually they would all fall, crushing themselves against the thick glass of the lights. </p><p>	Her guard had been doubled since the incident with Finn and Poe, but beyond that she had yet to face any real repercussions. She anticipated them, though. Any time Kylo Ren fell back from the van to check on her she found herself bracing for inevitable punishment. It never came. Hux glared at her the few times she was unfortunate enough to encounter him, but he never said a word. </p><p>	On the morning of the eighth day since Finn and Poe, the caravan came to a stop. All around them in every direction was a great plane of sun golden grass. Rey swore she could see for miles in any direction, uninterrupted. The air was cool on her cheeks, and she sipped clean water and nibbled at some dried fruit while a medic examined her. </p><p>After a week of slow and steady travel, Rey’s wound was finally showing steady improvement. It was scabbed over, clean and unswollen. It itched, but she found flicking it lightly helped to keep the discomfort at bay. </p><p>	“It’s looking good, healing nicely,” he said, sounding pleased. He dropped the hem of her shirt to cover her side once more. “After a few months of healing you can speak to a physician about eliminating the scar.” </p><p>	Rey quirked a brow and spoke around a chip of dried apple, “You people can get rid of scars?” </p><p>	“Minimize for sure,” the medic smiled at her. </p><p>	Rey glanced at her hands. They were a mess of tiny, silvery scars earned through years of scavenging and repurposing scrap. Maybe they were unsightly in the eyes of the image-obsessed Order, but to Rey they were a part of her person, a reminder of her constant struggle to survive. Each nick was a fight she had one. A dire moment she had conquered and overcome despite all of the odds stacked against her. </p><p>	She opened her mouth to dismiss the prospect entirely, when the medic went suddenly rigid. He stood at attention, making a salute as his eyes locked on someone approaching from behind Rey. She didn’t need to look to know who it was. The same sickly anticipation that had been haunting her for a week bubbled up in her gut, but she did not dare to turn and face the masked visage of Kylo Ren. </p><p>	“How is her wound?” Kylo came to a halt behind her, his shadow blotting out the sunlight, casting her in grey. </p><p>	“Mending well,” the medic reported stiffly. “She’ll need to finish out her course of antibiotics, but beyond that I see no further need to restrict her movement.” </p><p>	Rey scowled at that, and slowly curved herself to look up at the imposing figure of Kylo Ren. </p><p>	“Very good,” his voice was deep, tone authoritative. “You are dismissed.” </p><p>	The medic scurried away without another word. Sunlight glinted off of the pommel of Kylo’s sword. Rey noticed for the first time that the baldric across his chest was embroidered with dark, swirling patterns of faded red thread. </p><p>	Pushing off of the truck’s flat bed, Rey rose to her feet. </p><p>	“What do you want, now?” She asked with narrowed eyes. She kept careful stock of his every movement, each rise of his massive chest as he breathed. </p><p>	“I have a surprise for you,” He offered, vaguely. There was little emotion in his voice to hint at his true meaning. </p><p>	Rey’s scowl deepened, the crease between her brows darkening with further shadow. Had the time finally come for her to face punishment? Was that why the caravan had stopped moving? </p><p>	“Why are we stopped?” She pressed. </p><p>	“A scout spotted a herd of bison. We’re in need of fresh meat to sustain us through the rest of our journey.” </p><p>	The journey was taking them toward a place called New Zion. Kylo had disclosed no further detail beyond that. </p><p>	“What’s a bison?” Her curiosity was piqued. She knew very little of the world beyond Junktown and the native fauna that had wandered the dead forests outside of it. Rey knew raccoons, rabbits, squirrels and white-tails. Occasionally a band of lowland lions would rove through, and during the summer wild horses sometimes grazed the hills around the toxic rivers. She had never heard of a ‘bison’ before. </p><p>	“Have you seen a cow before?” Kylo asked. </p><p>	Rey nodded. Cows were the creatures of wasteland nomads who jockeyed their herds through wide swaths of ill-defined territory. She had only seen them a scant few times in her life. Most of them were scraggly and boney, with skin rotting on their flanks. She had even seen some with more than one head. Beef had been a rare, valuable trade in Junktown. A delicacy she had never had the privilege of indulging in. </p><p>	“They’re like cows but larger, more powerful and beautiful. Long ago they were confined to small areas of the plains, but since the bombs dropped humans haven’t been able to limit how far they range. We only hunt the herds when we pass through on our way to Zion, otherwise we leave them be.” </p><p>	“Did old world people not like them?” Rey asked, eyes wandering the horizon like she might spot one of the beasts. “Why would they confine them?”</p><p>	Kylo shrugged his shoulders, “In the old world men thought they could rule over nature, but that was only an illusion. But enough about the bison, come with me, I have a surprise for you.” </p><p>	Rey didn’t want to stop talking about the bison. She wanted to know more about them, more about how the people of the old world had actually <i>ruled</i> over nature, even if only for a moment, “But—</p><p>	“Come,” Kylo caught her hand in his. He was wearing a glove, but Rey could still feel the heat of his skin underneath. She was too surprised by the gesture to make any real attempt to pull away. By the time her mind had caught up with the gentleness of his touch he was tugging her along through the camp. </p><p>	“Are we staying the night here?” Rey asked, she saw the makings of bonfires coming together. Logs cut from the backs of trucks, kindling that had been collected while they still wandered the dense forests of the east. </p><p>	“Yes,” Kylo said, and his grip on her hand shifted, thumb brushing the backs of her knuckles as they paused to let a truck pass them by. “We’re resting the pack animals, and several of the trucks are in need of repairs.” </p><p>	They began to move again, further along the column than Rey had ever dared to tread before. The scent of horse filled up the air, and Kylo brought her to a small herd of animals. Some of them were being brushed down. All of them were fine, powerful beasts. Each marked with a many rayed star brand on their flank. </p><p>	“Horses?” Rey questioned. Beyond her frantic flight with Beebee she had never ridden before, she had no idea how to. But she was afraid to admit that weakness now. </p><p>	“Look.” He dropped her hand and pointed to the left of the herd where a boy was brushing down a horse with a red dun coat and a straw colored mane. </p><p>	Rey blinked in disbelief, “<i>Beebee?</i>”</p><p>	He was branded now, just like the rest of the herd, but it was undoubtedly him. He looked healthier than Rey remembered, less scrawny and more muscled. His ears flicked at the sound of her voice, and he raised his head, turning one dark eye to look at her. </p><p>	“The horse you fled from me on the back of,” Kylo said. He sounded pleased beneath his mask. “We captured him, and with our herd he has become stronger and better trained than ever. I want you to ride him, Rey. Accompany me at the front of the line. It’s where you belong.” </p><p>	Rey shook her head, still not quite believing that the animal was alive. Poe wouldn’t be pleased to know that he’d received Order training, but the surly little thing was <i>alive</i>. How long had it been since she’d lost him? Two months at least, probably more. The days all seemed to bleed together in hindsight. </p><p>	“I don’t really know how to ride,” Rey blurted. </p><p>	“You seemed capable enough on the night that you shot me,” she could hear the smirk in Kylo’s deep voice. </p><p>	“I was just holding on for dear life, honestly,” Rey began to make her way towards the little stallion. His ears flicked and he pawed the ground with a reddish hoof, nostrils flaring eagerly. </p><p>	Kylo wordlessly took the lead from the boy who had been holding Beebee, shooing him away with a flick of his wrist, “Riding is mostly intuitive, unless you’re trying to be fancy.” </p><p>	He motioned for Rey to climb onto Beebee’s back, though the horse wore no saddle. </p><p>	“You hold on with your knees, and a lot of the communication between animal and rider takes place in the legs. I’ve watched him train, he’s a good horse, receptive. It shouldn’t take much.” </p><p>	He began to lead Beebee in a circle while Rey got a feel for the animal underneath her. She took up the reins and let herself be carried forward. She couldn’t believe how casually she was interacting with Kylo Ren, it was easy to forget who he was, just for a moment. She was so elated to see Beebee again, and sitting on the back of a horse set her just above the rest of the camp. </p><p>	“See?” Kylo said, and Rey was struck by how strange he looked walking alongside her horse, leading her through the basics of riding. He was the scourge of the wastes, an ebony terror on the land, and yet here he was openly devoting his time to <i>helping</i> her. He didn’t seem to care who saw, and when Rey looked up she found much of the camp had stopped their preparations and were watching quite intently. </p><p>	“People are staring,” Rey mumbled, hands dropping onto Beebee’s withers. </p><p>	“Let them,” Kylo said boredly. “How’re you feeling up there?” </p><p>	Rey nodded her head, “Alright, I guess? I’m just confused.” </p><p>	“About?” </p><p>	“Why you’re doing this,” Rey glared down at him. “You’re a warlord. You torture and kill people, and you’re showing a scavenger girl how to ride a horse.” </p><p>	Kylo shrugged his broad shoulders, “You’re too preoccupied with my actions in the line of duty. None of that harshness applies to you, Rey. You’re different.” </p><p>	Rey shook her head and looked back to where the people had been staring. That had begun to return to their duties now. Only a few of the horse hands still gawked openly, “That isn’t how things work, Kylo Ren. And you know it.” </p><p>	He brushed her comment aside and unclasped the lead from the bridle. Beebee continued to walk, and Rey found that with some gentle pressure applied at the knee she could orient the horse left and right. </p><p>	“Good, good.” Kylo said, stopping to watch from a distance. “Tomorrow, when we begin to move again, you’ll be riding at the head of the column with me.” </p><p>	With a gentle tug on the reins Beebee came to a stop. Rey slipped off of his back, landing carefully in the knee high grass. “Thanks, I guess.” She would prefer horseback to the bed of a truck, she supposed. She was tired of spending her days on the verge of car-sickness, bouncing around between crates of weapons and supplies. </p><p>	She was standing in front of him again, dwarfed by him but emboldened by the presence of Beebee at her side. The horse whickered softly, nosing her hand with his velvety snout. </p><p>	“I don’t know what game you’re playing, Kylo Ren,” Rey said.</p><p>	“I’m not playing any game, I’ve told you everything I can,” Kylo answered. Then he reached out, hand black as midnight in the space between them. Rey didn’t flinch when he touched her cheek, and she didn’t try to retreat when his thumb trailed along her cheekbone. “You’re still so thin… too thin. Have you been eating, hellcat?” </p><p>	Rey scowled and finally ducked away from his touch, ignoring how her skin tingled where his warmth lingered, “Don’t pretend to be concerned about me.” </p><p>	Kylo scoffed, “Pretend? I think you’d know by now that I’m not <i>pretending</i> anything, Rey.” He shook his head, “Go, do what you like. Wander the camp. You have free reign now. I’ll find you again before sunset.” </p><p>	Rey watched him retreat back into the camp, swallowed up by the bustle of the day. Beside her Beebee snorted softly, toeing the ground with a hoof.  Kissing her teeth, she glanced around until she spotted one of the horse boys filling up a trough. </p><p>	“Hey,” Rey called to him. “Could you get me a saddle?” </p><p>	She spent the day learning the ins and outs of riding Beebee. Kylo Ren was right, it was mostly intuitive. And it wasn’t long before Rey was trotting in circles around the outer edge of the camp. It wasn’t lost on her that this was an opportunity to escape, to dig her heels into Beebee’s sides and gallop off into the sunset. But she also knew that was suicide, and Kylo must have known that she knew, or else he never would have let her out of that truck. </p><p>	Still, her eyes wandered the horizon longingly. Knowing that somewhere beyond the seeming neverending ocean of grass Junktown still remained. That she would actually miss the place, she never would have believed. But things made sense in Junktown in a way that they didn’t with the Order, that they hadn’t with the Resistance. </p><p>	The Resistance wanted a return to the old ways, to revive the old world from its slumber and return things to how they were before the bombs dropped. The First Order… she wasn’t sure what they wanted yet, beyond a vague concept of control. All Rey had ever wanted was to live her life. To live and die free, in the new world as it was. </p><p>	Now, she wondered, if that possibility even remained for her. Or if she would die in the crossfire between the Order and the Resistance. </p><p>	Clouds were rolling in as the sun began to set. Their stark, grey fronts were painted with the violet whispers of the sun’s waning light. Rey, not wanting to be caught unawares after sundown, led Beebee back into the heart of the camp, where she left him to be fed, brushed, and watered with the rest of the herd. </p><p>	The moon cast a pale, cold light through the thin cloud cover. And those giant lights on the backs of the trucks began to flicker to life. The hunt must have been successful because the scent of roasting meat filled the air, making Rey’s mouth water. </p><p>	Following her nose she made her way to the largest of the bonfires where she could see the silhouette of a giant hunk of meat roasting on a spit. </p><p>	People were laughing and singing, and kegs of golden-brown beer had been tapped and flowed freely into standard issue First Order canteens. Rey stepped forward, thinking she might try some. The only alcohol she had ever tried in Junktown had been of the grain variety, strong enough to strip paint. </p><p>	A hand on her arm stopped her before she could step into the fire’s warm ring of light. </p><p>	“Not so fast,” a familiar nasal voice hissed, lilting with that strange unplaceable accent. Hux. </p><p>	Stiffly, Rey jerked her arm out of his grip, spinning to face him with all the ferocity of a cornered animal. But he was bigger than her, and stronger than her, so when he seized her by her throat and dragged her into the shadows all Rey could do was choke on a scream. </p><p>	Hux slammed her roughly into the side of a truck, making the body of the vehicle shake. His icy eyes glinted with cold fire, and his words came as a rushed whisper. </p><p>	He was afraid, Rey realized. Even as he assailed her he was afraid of Kylo Ren. </p><p>	“Listen here you little bitch, and listen closely,” Hux hissed. “You might be Ren’s little whore out here in the wastes, but in Zion <i>I</i> command respect. What you did with those prisoners will not go unpunished, not when Snoke hears the truth of it. So enjoy your time on your little slut back while you still can, because when the Supreme Leader is through with you you’ll wish the Commander had never scraped you out of your junkyard hovel.” </p><p>	Rey groped at his wrist. His grip on her throat was dangerously tight, restricting air flow. Where was Kylo? He always had an eye on her, why wasn’t he rescuing her now?</p><p>	Rey swung her leg and kicked weakly at Hux’s shins. With a light, amused laugh he finally released her. Her head spun as she collapsed to the ground, sucking down great gulps of smoky air and pawing at her throat. </p><p>	“I’d kick you again,” Hux jeered. “But you aren’t worth the trouble it would stir with your master.” </p><p>	“He’s— he’s not my master,” Rey sputtered, snarling up at him from the ground. The tall stalks of grass bent and broke and scratched the skin of her face. </p><p>	“Oh, he is,” Hux sneered. “You’re his little pet. One in a long line of many. They tend not to last long, not in Zion. I think you’ll be dead in a matter of months, once he tires of you.” </p><p>	Shaking, Rey struggled to her feet, “I’m not some <i>whore</i>. And I’m not afraid of—</p><p>	“Rey?!” Kylo’s voice cut through the narrow space between them. Rey, glaring up at Hux, spat at his boot, then flitted away towards Kylo. She needed to stay near to him, within his sight. It was safest there, and she had nowhere else to go. </p><p>	“Kylo?” Rey answered him, and when she found him he pulled her into his side, dragging her along towards the fire. </p><p>	“Come,” He said, smiling behind the mask. “You have to try some of the bison.” </p><p>	Rey glanced back over her shoulder, cupped in Kylo’s gloved hand. She could still see Hux loitering in the shadows, glaring after them. She considered telling Kylo everything that had just occurred, she knew if she did Hux’s consequences would be immediate and dire. But wasn’t that just what Kylo’s <i>pet</i> would do? Wouldn’t she be proving Hux right, giving more of herself over to the warlord than ever before? </p><p>	She kept her lips sealed, but kept close to Kylo Ren. Suddenly feeling very safe by his side, with his arm around her shoulders. </p><p>	She ate, and Kylo watched her intently as they sat within the blazing radius of the bonfire. The bison meat was tender, but ultimately it was nothing but bitter ash on her tongue. Hux had implied that there had been women before, that they had died. But also Kylo offered the only succor she would find in this place. Without his protection she would die just as surely as she would in the wastes. </p><p>	Kylo brought her a canteen of beer to wash down the grease of the bison with. Tolerance low, soon Rey’s head was spinning. The alcohol was bubbly and pleasantly bitter on her tongue, and it made her feel warm despite the cold of the night. She kept drinking until the canteen was empty, and she was uneasy on her feet. </p><p>	“Come with me,” Kylo said, and his voice was dangerously near to her ear. </p><p>	Overhead the clouds were parting, giving way to deep black patches of star speckled midnight. Rey looked up at them and they blurred in her vision. </p><p>	“Where are we going?” She asked, her hand clasped in his. Sometime in the night he had shed his gloves, so they were skin to skin, flesh to searing flesh. Just his touch was enough to distract Rey. </p><p>	He didn’t say anything, but eventually they came to his tent. It was illuminated brightly from within, a structure of poles and black fabric. </p><p>	<i>Am I your pet?</i> Rey wanted to ask, but her insides were too puddly and sweet for her to give voice to the words. There would be time for that come sunrise, for that moment Rey was preoccupied with being led into the temporary structure. He took her straight to his sleeping quarters, a room with an actual bed that the caravan lugged around with them. </p><p>	It was fine. The linens were black silk and the pillowcases and duvet were embroidered. Kylo motioned for her to sit on the foot of the bed, and Rey acquiesced. </p><p>She stared at him as he stood very still for a moment. They were alone, and part of her was very, very afraid of what might happen next. Afraid of <i>him</i>. </p><p>“I’ve been hiding myself from you,” Kylo said, finally. His voice was deep and thick as honey, and he went down onto one knee in front of her. “I feel like you don’t <i>trust</i> me, and I resent you for that, but also I haven’t afforded you that which I want you to feel for me. <i>Trust</i>.” </p><p>Rey sobered slightly and backed further onto the mattress and away from him. Fear bubbled up into her throat now. Hot and viscous. <i>Trust</i>? He wanted her to <i>trust</i> him. Did he not realize that she was with him because she had to be? Because it was unsafe otherwise? Hux wanted her dead, he’d laughed at the idea, and now—</p><p>Kylo’s thumbs hooked under the sides of his helmet, and swiftly he pulled it over his face and brow, revealing himself to her in his entirety. </p><p>It was jarring. Because he wasn’t a monster underneath that mask, like Rey had imagined. He was pale, his face was long, his lips were full and his sable eyes glinted in the dim light of the room. His hair was black as midnight and hung in graceful waves around his face and ears. </p><p>Rey swallowed thickly. He was… pretty.</p><p>	Some of that drunken warmth returned to the pit of Rey’s stomach, but also fear, stark and cold, gripped her limbs. What did he want now? What did he expect from her? </p><p>	“Do you see now, Rey?” He asked, those full lips moving around his words. “You can trust me.” </p><p>	He smiled a small, deluded smile. Rey’s fingers curled into the duvet, her lips parted, but no noise emerged beyond a small, strangled sound. </p><p>	“Or don’t say anything,” Kylo said. “That’s fine, too.” </p><p>	And then he kissed her. Lunging through the space between them he caught her face between his large, warm hands and crushed that full mouth to her own. He wasted no time, tongue probing her lips, fingers already searching down along the column of her throat. </p><p>	Rey was frozen under his touch, eyes wide and petrified. He might not have looked like a monster, but she knew what Kylo Ren was. And he was <i>kissing</i> her. His tongue was in her mouth, teeth pulling at her lower lip. </p><p>	Finally regaining herself Rey gasped and shoved him away, “NO!” </p><p>	Kylo reel backward, catching himself on his hands before he fully sprawled on the floor, “Rey, what—</p><p>	“I’m not your pet, Kylo Ren!” Rey stood up, looming over him. Her hands were curled into fists at her sides. His taste lingered on her tongue, his kiss still tingling in her lips. “You’re a fucking psychopath and I’m not… I’m not going to <i>fuck</i> you because you think it will foster trust!” </p><p>	“Rey—</p><p>	Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, hot and threatening to belie all of her severity. “Shut up! You’re insane!” </p><p>	She wanted to run. She wanted to hide, but also she was aware that Hux was likely waiting for her somewhere out in the darkness. And the General was not saving a kiss for her, of that she was certain. Rey was safest here, in the quarters of the scourge of the wastes. </p><p>	“I’ll never hurt you, Rey,” Kylo pleaded, softly. His voice was deceptively stable and smooth. “I’m sorry I rushed things but I will <i>never</i> hurt you. Who told you that you’re my pet?” </p><p>	From the flash in his black eyes Rey knew he already had an idea. </p><p>	“No one,” Rey crossed her arms defensively. Tears betrayed her, trekking hot down her cheeks. She averted her eyes, unable to meet his gaze. </p><p>	Kylo hummed softly. He didn’t try to touch her again, but when he stood he did step closer to her, “Don’t be afraid, Rey.” </p><p>	Rey shook her head, shying away from him. He was her safety, but also the demon chomping at her heel. She wanted to return to Junktown, to resume her life of innocuity and pretend that none of this had ever happened. The Resistance, Paige, Kylo Ren. She wanted all of it to go away. </p><p>	“I want to sleep,” She said, finally. </p><p>	“Take my bed,” Kylo offered, gently. “I’ll take the floor.” </p><p>	Rey laid down on top of the duvet, unable to look at him. </p><p>	“Tomorrow you’ll ride with me, Rey,” he said. “Eventually you’ll understand, you’ll see things the way I do.” </p><p>	The alcohol lingered in her mind, and despite her turmoil it carried her swiftly into sleep. </p><p>	Her lips still burned from the kiss.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Please let me know what you think!</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Updates will come whenever the moods strikes me. </p><p>Tumblr: <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/blog/sordidbones">Link</a><a></a></p><p>I have now made a Twitter where I update fic, you can find it here: <a href="https://twitter.com/bitt3rbones">X</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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